TVEL, the fuel manufacturer subsidiary of Russia’s Rosatom, has signed a contract with India’s Department of Atomic Energy for supplies of uranium fuel pellets for the Tarapur boiling water reactors (BWRs). A key component of nuclear fuel, a pellet consists of pressed-powder uranium dioxide that has previously been enriched with the U-235 isotope. Such fuel pellets need to be further loaded into fuel rods.
The contract covers the supply this year of “several dozen tonnes” of the pellets, which are to be produced by Elektrostal Machine-Building Plant, a TVEL facility located in the Moscow region. The nuclear fuel bundles for the Tarapur units will be manufactured at the National Fuel Complex in Hyderabad, in Telengana state.
TVEL has already fulfilled several similar contracts for the export of fuel pellets to India, including for pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs), Oleg Grigoriyev, senior vice-president for commerce and international business at TVEL, noted.
Commissioned in 1969, the Tarapur nuclear power plant, which is in Palghar district, in Maharashtra state, was the first commercial nuclear power plant in India. It consists of two 150 MWe BWRs and two 490 MWe PHWRs.
TVEL also supplies complete fuel bundles for Russian-made VVER reactors at the two operating units of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant, under a long-term contract with Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited.
The value and size of the new contract were not disclosed.
Source: World Nuclear News
