The Hindu Business Line : Imported fuel supplies for nuclear stations being tied up

Nuke plans
Russia’s TVEL would deliver low-enriched uranium supplies worth over $700 million to India
DAE is also holding talks on uranium supplies with Canada, Kazakhstan, and some African countries

Anil Sasi

New Delhi, Feb. 10 Imported fuel supplies for the country’s starving nuclear power programme are on the horizon, which could get the indigenous atomic stations up and running at higher capacity in the due course.

The Department of Atomic Energy plans to use the first tranche of nuclear fuel supplies from Areva of France for Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd’s Rajasthan Atomic Power Station (RAPS) units. Areva had, in December, signed a pact to offer 300 tonnes for India’s existing Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs). The ongoing fuel crunch has already forced a delay in the commissioning of two new units at the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station — RAPS 5 and 6 of 220 MW each — by nearly a year.

As an added relief, Russia’s state-owned nuclear fuel monopoly TVEL Corporation is set to close a deal to deliver 2,000 tonnes of uranium pellets to India, Government sources said. Under the protocol on fuel supplies finalised with Russia, TVEL would deliver low-enriched uranium supplies worth over $700 million to India, with an assurance of supplies to a number of the country’s PHWRs.

This includes uranium dioxide pellets for the Tarapur station. The Russian contract is likely to incorporate a long-term delivery schedule, possibly for a period of around 10 years, and an agreement to this effect is expected shortly. DAE is also holding talks on uranium supplies with Canada, Kazakhstan, and some African countries.

India had, on February 2, inked a specific safeguards agreement with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). India now has to ratify the agreement and communicate the same to the IAEA, formally clearing the way for fuel imports for facilities that are under the Agency’s safeguards.

Fuel shortages have already forced NPCIL’s stations to cut generation levels from an average 80 per cent plant load factor till about a couple of years ago to under 50 per cent currently. NPCIL has an installed capacity of 4,120 MW at present.

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