Country receives largest grant ever from international donors to finalize Chornobyl plant closure
Ukraine has received a halfbillion dollars in grants from international donors to finalize the closure of the infamous Chornobyl plant, site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
“We have witnessed an historic event. Ukraine has received the biggest grant since the country’s independence,” Emergencies Minister Nestor Shufrych said during a press conference in Kyiv earlier this week.
The Chornobyl plant was decommissioned in December 2000 to much fanfare. But long-term safety risks remain from leakage of the plant’s No. 4 reactor, which exploded in 1986.
Additionally, a storage facility needs to be built to hold spent nuclear fuel from the plant’s other three reactors.
The problems fall under projects funded through the Chornobyl Shelter Fund and the Nuclear Safety Account, which were created in the 1990s on initiatives from the EU and the G7.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is managing the two projects: the containment of the No. 4 reactor and the building of a fuel storage facility.
Director of the EBRD’s Nuclear Safety Department, Vince Novak, Chornobyl plant acting general director Oleksandr Skripov and Shufrych signed the project grants on Aug. 7.
It’s not clear when the projects will be completed or how much funding each will require altogether.
The Shelter Implementation Plan involves the construction of an arch-shaped 20,000-ton steel structure with a height of 100 meters and a span of 250 meters to cover the temporary sarcophagus put over the No. 4 reactor following the 1986 accident.
The planned budget for the shelter project is currently estimated at about $1.2 billion dollars, a sum that includes preliminary work already completed since 1997.
The original budget put forward in 1997, when the Shelter Fund was created, totaled only $768 million.
The Shelter Fund was a joint initiative by the G7 and the EU with donations from 23 countries.
Ukraine contributions to the Shelter Fund include $50 million in funding in addition to support from the Chornobyl plant staff.
The $453 million in grants agreed on Aug. 7 will go toward the final stage of the shelter project, the EBRD said
The grant had been approved by a preliminarily meeting of the so-called Donors Assembly, held in London July 17.
The second agreement signed on Aug. 7 relates to the construction of a facility to store spent nuclear fuel from the plant’s other reactors.
The grant for this project was around $46 million, with the Nuclear Safety Account serving as the project fund.
The Assembly of Contributors to this fund agreed the grant amount during a meeting July 18, according to the EBRD.
The Nuclear Safety Account was set up in 1993 as part of a G7 initiative and receives its financing from North America, Europe and Japan.
The Chornobyl Plant already has one spent fuel container in place, but it is due to be decommissioned in 2016.
Framatome, a French-based designer and builder of nuclear power plants (now called Areva NP), signed a contract in 1999 to build a storage facility at the Chornobyl plant, but work was suspended in 2003 over alleged project defects raised by the Chornobyl plant’s management.
Framatome, which heads a consortium of engineering companies involved in the building of the nuclear storage, was originally supposed to have completed works in 2003.
Around $96 million has already been spent on it, the Emergency Ministry said last year.
With more than 50 percent of the second storage facility completed, the US-based nuclear engineering company Holtec International has now taken over. The project was originally estimated to cost around $121 million.
The EBRD said the contract agreement for the spent fuel facility is expected to be signed in the near future.
The contract for the completion of the arch over the No. 4 reactor has also been held up over the choice of the contractor.
The drawn-out tender, which was announced in March 2004, produced two finalists: Novarca, a European-Ukrainian joint venture under the management of France’s Vinchi Group, and a US-Ukrainian consortium under the management of US-based CH2M Hill. During an Aug. 7 press conference, Shufrych said Novarca had won the contract.
According to the Emergency Ministry, more than 330 million euros of the project’s funds had already been spent as of last year. This amount, the ministry said, includes nearly 90 million euros in consulting fees.
Tender applications go through a selection process, but Ukrainian officials have the last say.
