Bangladesh and Russia yesterday signed a protocol that clears the way for procurement of nuclear fuel for the first unit of the Rooppur nuclear power plant.
The nuclear fuel will be supplied by global market leader TVEL Fuel Company, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned nuclear power conglomerate Rosatom.
The first shipment from TVEL, which controls 38 percent of the world’s uranium conversion and 46 percent of uranium enrichment capacity, is expected to arrive in October.
Another subsidiary of Rosatom JSC Nauchno-Issledovatelsky i Konstruktorsky Institut Montazhnoy Tekhnologii Atomstroy (NIKIMT) is the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for nuclear power plant.
On April 12, the US Treasury and State departments imposed sanctions on NIKIMT along with four entities and one individual that are part of Rosatom.
The sanctions come after documents showed that Rosatom has been supplying the Russian arms industry with components, technology and raw materials for missile fuel, aiding Moscow’s continuing onslaught on Ukraine, reported The Washington Post in January.
TVEL and its parent company Atomenergoprom are not in the sanction list, in what can be viewed as a relief for Bangladesh which has little choice to power the Russian-made reactors of the $12.65 billion nuclear power plant in Ishwardi, Pabna.
As per the agreement, Russia will not charge Bangladesh for nuclear fuel for the three years of the plant’s commissioning.
The agreement was signed by Md Shaukat Akbar, project director of Rooppur nuclear power plant, and AV Diary, vice-president of Atomstroy Export, in the Russian city of Novosibirsk. Kamrul Ahsan, Bangladesh’s ambassador to Russia, and Jahedul Hasan, deputy director of Rooppur nuclear power plant, was present among others.
Originally, the first unit of the 2,400MW Rooppur nuclear power plant was supposed to start commercial operation in December 2023, but it is now gunning for an early 2025 start date for commissioning.
The ambitious project has run into a snag after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the subsequent Western sanctions on the Soviet nation’s apparatus.
Already, Bangladesh has run into difficulty servicing a $500 million loan taken in 2013 from Russia for the Rooppur project’s primary work following Western sanctions on Russian banks.
While a preliminary agreement was struck to service the stalled payments in Chinese currency, that modality is unlikely to progress after the latest round of US sanctions.
But the stuck payments pose another problem for Bangladesh: risks of being classed as a defaulter of foreign loan.
Subsequently, the Economic Relations Division, the government wing responsible for handling foreign loans, has decided to open an escrow account with the Bangladesh Bank.
Payments for Rooppur would be deposited in the escrow account, which is an account where funds are held in trust while two or more parties complete a transaction.
Source: The Daily Star