Ukraine signs deal with US firm to construct spent nuclear fuel container plant

Ukraine's state NPP operator Energoatom and the American company Holtec International plan to build a plant for the production of containers for spent nuclear fuel in Ukraine, which are now manufactured in the United States, the Ministry of Energy said.

Spent nuclear fuel is stored in a central repository using "dry" storage technology, which was built in Ukraine before the start of the full-scale war. Spent nuclear fuel from Ukrainian nuclear power plants has already been loaded into it. Ukraine's use of its own storage saves the state about $200 million every year. It also enabled Ukraine to completely abandon the export of spent nuclear fuel to Russia even before the all-out war.

Holtec also plans to build a plant in Ukraine that will manufacture the main equipment of a small modular reactor (SMR) using Holtec SMR technology.

This plant should ensure not only the construction of MMR capacities in Ukraine, but also, in the future, become a hub for exporting this technology to other European countries.

In the spring of 2023, Energoatom and Holtec International also signed an agreement on cooperation in deploying Holtec small modular reactors in Ukraine, which provides for the construction of small modular reactors in Ukraine.

Petro Kotin, the president of Energoatom, said that in three years, that is, approximately in 2026, Ukraine will be able to produce nuclear fuel for nuclear power plants on its own.