Business news

MINSK, 28 December (BelTA) – The VVER-1200 reactor pressure vessel has been delivered to the Belarusian nuclear power plant on 28 December, BelTA has learned.

A VVER-1200 reactor pressure vessel weighs over 330 tonnes. It is 12 meters high, with 4.5 meters in diameter. The reactor is a vertical cylinder with an elliptical bottom. The reactor core and the internal components are located inside. The reactor is covered by a hermetically sealed lid. The lid is connected with the vessel using double-end bolts. The upper part of the reactor pressure vessel contains pipes to feed and drain the heat transfer agent as well as pipes to feed the heat transfer agent in case the pipe circuit depressurizes.

This piece of equipment was made by the Volgodonsk-based enterprise Atommash of the Russian company AEM Technologies (part of Atomenergomash, which is the mechanical engineering division of the Russian state corporation Rosatom). The journey to Belarus started on 31 October. A special truck delivered this piece of equipment to the local river port in Volgodonsk. From there the reactor pressure vessel was transported by river to Novovoronezh. After that a special transporter delivered the product by rail to the Ostrovets construction site.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant is a project to build a VVER-1200 type nuclear power plant 18km away from Ostrovets, Grodno Oblast. The BelNPP will have two power-generating units with the total output capacity of up to 2,400MW (2x1,200MW).