Rosatom said that the issued document following the “routine supervisory audit” means “the company can supply nuclear power plant equipment as part of the Paks II NPP project, which is manufactured at the plants of the machine-building division”.
Manufacturing of metallurgical blanks for the proposed unit 5 began last year and for the proposed unit 6 in April this year. Manufacturing of reactor internals for unit 5 began this year.
Rosatom said: “Before commencing work, the machine-building division’s production facilities … received the relevant nuclear qualification certificates and licences. The initial audit required to commence work on the project was conducted by the division’s management company in 2018.”
Background
The Paks plant, 100 kilometres south of Budapest, currently comprises four Russian-supplied VVER-440 pressurised water reactors, which started up between 1982 and 1987. An inter-governmental agreement was signed in early 2014 for Russian enterprises and their international subcontractors to supply two VVER-1200 reactors at Paks as well as a Russian state loan of up to EUR10.0 billion (USD10.5 billion) to finance 80% of the project.
The construction licence application was submitted in July 2020, the licence was issued in August 2022, and a construction timetable was agreed in 2023. First concrete is expected later this year, with a target to connect the new units to the grid at the beginning of the 2030s.
Last month the European Court of Justice backed Austria’s appeal against Hungary’s state aid for the construction of the Paks II nuclear power plant and said the European Commission “should have ascertained” whether the direct award of a contract “complies with EU public procurement rules”. That means that the European Commission is re-examining whether or not to approve the state funding plan, which it had approved in 2017. Hungarian ministers have said the court’s decision will not halt or delay the project.
