Opinions & Interviews

Quality of work watched closely at construction site of Belarusian nuclear station

A reliable complex system to control the quality of work has been created at the construction site of the Belarusian nuclear power plant. The statement was made by Belarusian Deputy Energy Minister Mikhail Mikhadyuk on 17 August during Belarusian-Lithuanian public debates about the report on the assessment of the Belarusian nuclear power plant’s environmental impact, BelTA has learned.

Asked by a representative of the Lithuanian public about the quality of the construction work, the Deputy Energy Minister said that the general contractor and the general customer use a special automated quality control system, which closely monitors the observance of technological guidelines and makes it impossible to transition to a new stage of construction and equipment installation without fulfilling and confirming quality parameters of the previous stages. Apart from that, representatives of the State Construction Control Department, the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department of the Emergencies Ministry and other auditing agencies are permanently on site and keep an eye on the performance of the general contractor and the general customer. Every month a vice premier chairs a session of the construction staff. A session of the special interagency group on the construction of the nuclear power plant takes place once a month to discuss all the aspects regarding the quality of work and control over it.

“Together with the general contractor OAO NIAEP – ZAO ASE we agreed initially that if at least one subcontractor fails to produce top quality work or fails to comply at least with one clause of the contract, the subcontractor will be out of the project forever,” stressed Mikhail Mikhadyuk.

During the meeting with representatives of the Lithuanian public Mikhail Mikhadyuk explained the reasoning behind the choice of the Ostrovets site for building the nuclear power plant in detail. In his words, the site has been chosen due to safety reasons. Initially two more sites in Mogilev Oblast were under consideration, but later on solution cavities were found over there. “At present the global community has no clear-cut methods to prevent possible consequences of the construction of a nuclear power plant at such locations and has no engineering solutions to prevent problems afterwards. The expected pressure of the power plant on the surface will be felt 75m below the surface while in those locations waterlogged solution cavities were 35m below the surface,” specified the Deputy Energy Minister. He also said that two institutes – Vedeneyev’s from Russia and Kyievatomproject from Ukraine – were insistent in persuading Belarus not to risk it and choose the Ostrovets site due to the best safety from the point of view of the Earth's crust stability.

The Belarusian Deputy Energy Minister was also surprised that the representatives of Lithuanian mass media and the general public, whom he had told about these facts before the public debates, were not aware of these facts. “We handed over all the data to the official Lithuanian side a long time ago with a request to deliver the information to the public and government agencies, but it seems to me they have ignored the request. Not everything we have officially sent to Lithuania is disclosed,” noted Mikhail Mikhadyuk.

The Deputy Energy Minister mentioned the Rovno nuclear power plant in Ukraine as a sad example of a poor choice of the land plot to build a nuclear power plant. Forty years after the station was built, they still pour reinforced concrete into cavities where the main buildings are in order to slow down hazardous developments.

Mikhail Mikhadyuk underlined that Belarus is building the nuclear power plant primarily for its own needs, needs of the Belarusian economy, although energy export cannot be ruled out either. The construction of the nuclear power plant is primarily needed for raising the competitive ability of the Belarusian economy, noted the Deputy Energy Minister. At present the larger part of electric and heating energy is generated in Belarus using expensive imported energy resources, thus bringing down the prime cost of merchandise. “Our energy industry is gas-powered for now. The same structure of energy generation among other European countries can be observed in Italy only where 100kW now costs $0.2. The construction of the nuclear power plant in Belarus will allow the economy and ordinary people to breathe freely,” Mikhail Mikhadyuk is convinced.

Apart from that, the construction of the nuclear power plant will deliver a massive effect as far as the diversification of energy sources is concerned. “While at present Belarus imports 11-12 billion m3 of natural gas for energy industry needs, the figure will drop to 5 billion m3 once the nuclear power plant is commissioned. It is a significant result,” explained the official. Apart from that, the country is busy modernizing for the sake of increasing the effectiveness of energy-generating installations. Large-scale work is in progress to raise the energy effectiveness of consumption using alternative sources of energy. However, according to calculations of the Energy Ministry and the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, all of it will have a limited effect and will not be able to satisfy all the needs of the country.

Commenting on prospects of electricity export, Mikhail Mikhadyuk said that if economic parameters of the entire Belarusian power generation industry are competitive as a whole and energy prices are appealing for neighbors, then export will be possible.

In his opinion, economic reasons are behind Lithuania’s complaints. “All this fuss regarding our project is nothing but Lithuania’s attempt to defend its economic interests. Together with other Baltic states Lithuania stated earlier that they are going to build a nuclear power plant of their own. But if three stations emerge in such a small area, then it will be difficult to find an investor without guaranteed energy sales. They are just angry that Belarus is successful at building the nuclear power plant, although initially they had more prerequisites to do the same,” said the Deputy Energy Minister.

He also added that Belarus will consider hiring former Ignalina nuclear power plant employees. “We know that about 200 applications from former Ignalia nuclear power plant employees have been sent to Belarus. We will work with them. In the near future we will start recruiting personnel to operate the Belarusian nuclear power plant. We will consider hiring more to match our requirements. You have to understand that close attention must be paid to hiring personnel to operate a nuclear power plant,” stressed the Deputy Energy Minister.

Mikhail Mikhadyuk said the Belarusian side had received a proposal from a Lithuanian construction company, which is eager to take part in the construction of the Belarusian station. The official explained that the company is ready to take part in building the infrastructure for the Belarusian nuclear power plant on subcontracting terms.

“We suggested that the Lithuanian company should work not only in Ostrovets, but also in Minsk and Belarus as a whole. By the way, we are ready to consider any proposal from Lithuanian builders and to forward it to the Belarusian Architecture and Construction Ministry as well as other government agencies,” added Mikhail Mikhadyuk.

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