On October 11, the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of United States of America in Ukraine Marie L. Yovanovitch visited Chornobyl NPP with an informal visit. The main purpose of the visit was to obtain information about the state of New Safe Confinement (NSC) and Dry type Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facility (ISF-2) construction projects implementation.

During the visit Marie Yovanovitch visited the NSC's observation pavilion, showing the great interest to the details of the Chornobyl disaster and overcoming the accident consequences at the Unit four. Deputy Chief Engineer of Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant Mr Alexander Novikov and SIP Project Management Unit Director Mr Oscar McNeil answered numerous questions from Mrs Ambassador.

Top Management meeting regarding ISF-2 Project was held at Chornobyl NPP industrial site on October 5. The meeting was attended by EBRD's Nuclear Safety Department representatives Mr Vince Novak, Mr Steven White, Mr Alexander Slavis and Mr Valery Kulishenko. Chornobyl NPP was represented at the meeting by Plant’s General Director Mr Igor Gramotkin, Safety Improvement Chief Engineer Mr Andriy Savin, Deputy Technical Director Mr Volodymyr Peskov, and by representatives of the Holtec Company Management, being the Project General Contractor.

During the meeting held at the New Storage Facility construction site, the status of ISF-2 equipment testing and implementation of the comprehensive "cold" test at the facility was considered. Bank’s representatives also visited ISF-2 "hot" cell, where tests of cutting equipment and copying manipulators were conducted.

At the end of the meeting, the meeting participants visited the New Safe Confinement construction site and were convinced that the project progress is significant.

 

Representatives of the Working Group for Radioactive Waste Management and Decommissioning of the Western European Nuclear Regulators Association (WENRA) visited the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant industrial site for information purposes. The group consisted of specialists from Belgium, Spain, Germany, France, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, Great Britain, Poland and Ukraine.

Constantine Schefer, Deputy General Director for Institutional Supervision and Licensing, provided guests with information about the current activity at Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant. During the visit, the group visited the construction site of the Dry type Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facility, Liquid Radioactive Waste Treatment Plant and Industrial Complex for Solid Radioactive Waste Management, where they became acquainted with the technologies which will be used at ChNPP in the RAW management field.

They also visited the NSC's observation pavilion and saw the first hand the project progress as well as former ChNPP satellite city Pripyat.

 

Training in BROKK manipulators maintenance and repair was held at Chornobyl NPP in September.

Specialists of the Radioactive Waste Management shop (hereinafter: RWMS) were trained on the basis of the Industrial Complex for Solid Radioactive Waste Management (hereinafter: ICSRM).

Two experts from Belgian company TECNUBEL were instructors. The training was carried out under the full financing from the Belgian government fund.

Training started from the theoretical part. The experts told to RWMS representatives about the main units of BROKK-180 system and about the indicators of their failure. 

SSE ChNPP General Director Igor Gramotkin, accompanied by Acting Technical Director Oleksandr Skomarokhov, top management of JV Novarka and SIP PMU, made a regular walk through the New Safe Confinement working area. 

The managers became convinced that the project works are at the closing stage: general construction works are almost finished; installation of the main systems is in progress; preparatory works and tests of main cranes system are underway; works on outer and inner cladding are coming to an end; installation of the sealing membrane is in progress. Active works are under way both inside and outside the technological building, as well as in auxiliary premises. First of all these are installation works for various systems.