Fuel maintenance license permitted to Rooppur NPP

Ishwardi (Pabna) Correspondent :
Fuel (Uranium) maintenance (import, transportation and storage) license for Rooppur nuclear power plant under construction has been approved. Bangladesh Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority (BAERA) on Thursday through a ceremony organized at Ratnadwip Resort in Pabna, issued licenses to Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission and Rooppur project fuel import, transportation and storage operators. By granting this license, Bangladesh has achieved a very important milestone in the production of nuclear power, the ability to import fuel, said the nuclear stakeholders present.
Science and Technology Minister Architect Yeafesh Osman was the Chief Guest at the licensing ceremony organized by Bangladesh Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority. Bayara Chairman Engineer Md. Mozammel Hossain presided. Deputy Chairman of Rostecnazor of Rashan Federation, Deputy Director of Rosatom Mr. A. Y. Petrov, Chairman of Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission Professor Dr. Ashok Kumar Pal, Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology Ziaul Hasan.
Dr. Satyajit Ghosh said that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has specific guidelines for the use of nuclear energy. He said that in Bangladesh Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority regulates and supervises. Organizations involved in implementation of Rooppur project have to obtain license from us for import, transportation and storage of nuclear fuel. The Ruppur project authority has submitted the documents for fulfilling the conditions for the last one year after applying for the license. Bira agrees to grant this license after repeated document review and evaluation. We provide licenses to Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission and related companies in energy transportation. In the meantime, there was no more obstacle in the import of fuel (uranium) for the country’s first nuclear power plant in September.
The import of nuclear fuel is another milestone for the country. Dr. Shaukat Akbar said, at the practical level in the global nuclear club, we went through construction once, another time through fuel import to rise to the status of nuclear energy handling country. We want to go into ‘pre-operational commissioning’ or experimental production from 2023. Operational commissioning involves many of our infrastructure, physical production, offsite telecommunications, emergency management infrastructure. He hoped that they would be able to complete them on time in accordance with the instructions of the IAEA.
Incidentally, the Rooppur nuclear power project is being implemented by the Atomic Energy Commission under the Ministry of Science and Technology with the technical and financial support of Russia. The power project under construction at Rooppur in Ishwardi on the banks of Padma river is the biggest infrastructure in the country’s history. The general designer and contractor of the project is the engineering arm of Rosatom Corporation of Russia. Two units of the project have 3 generation Russian VVER reactors. A total of 2,400 MW of electricity is scheduled to be connected to the national grid from the first unit in 2024 and 1,200 MW from the second unit the following year.