Russia’s contractor appoints new executive to control construction of Belarusian NPP
Vitaly Medyakov has been appointed vice president of the Russian company NIAEP, part of the group of companies Atomstroyexport (ASE for short), which is in charge of building nuclear power plants outside Russia.
His predecessor — Yuri Pustovoi — oversaw the construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant in 2012-2016. He was dismissed for medical reasons, Belarusian state-controlled news agency BelTA reports.
Vasily Limarenko, President of the ASE group of companies, appreciated Yuri Pustovoi’s contribution to the Belarusian nuclear power plant project.
However, in spite of the higlly-praised ‘high level of organization of construction processes’ and ‘state-of-the-art project management technologies’, a number of incidents did occur on the construction site.
On 8 April 2016, there was a collapse of the structural frame of the would-be nuclear service building at Astravets NPP, of which Belsat.eu was informed in early May.
At first, the authorities denied our report saying that there had not been any incidents at the construction site. State-run mass media remained silent as well. After the publication Lithuania summoned Belarus’ ambassador and handed him a diplomatic note demanding explanation over the incident.
As reported earlier, during installation the enclosure of the future reactor fell from the height of 2 – 4 meters at the construction site of the Belarusian NPP in Astravets.
At first, the Belarusian Energy Ministry declined any comment on the situation. The press office group of the company Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of the Russian state corporation Rosatom and the general contractor at the Belarusian NPP construction, said the information about the reactor’s fall was untrue. Later, however, the Belarusian side confirmed that the ‘emergency situation had occurred in the storage area of the reactor body during its movement in the horizontal plane’.
Then Belarus president Alyaksandr Lukashenka ordered to ‘get rid of the reactor vessel’ if it had suffered ‘the slightest bit of damage’. Rosatom admitted that the incident had taken place but stated that Belarusian NPP reactor housing had not been damaged.
- About 10 people killed at Astravets NPP construction — civil activist
- ‘No matter from what height reactor vessel fell’ – expert
- Nuclear bomb of Astravets
The NPP first power-generating unit is scheduled for commissioning in 2018, the second one – in 2020. The construction of two nuclear reactors is provided in the agreement reached by Belarus and Russia, the reactors being supplied by Atomstroyexport. The project faced opposition at home and abroad on both safety and political grounds.
