In 2019, Ukraine will become the first country to have a fully-operational Consolidated Interim Storage facility (in the north of the country in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone). Used fuel from the country's nine VVER reactors (Rivne, Khmelnitsky, and South Ukraine) operated by the national utility NAEK Energoatom will be packaged in all-welded multi-purpose canisters and transported to the Country's centralized fuel storage facility in lieu of being shipped to Russia at a huge annual (recurring) cost to Ukraine's treasury (some $200 million). A major milestone was reached last week when twelve specialists from Energoatom and the country's regulatory authority bore down on Holtec's manufacturing plants in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Jersey, where the capital equipment and systems for the project are being fabricated. In particular, the Company's latest plant in Camden, NJ, called Advanced Manufacturing Division (AMD) is slated to fabricate the largest weldments for convenient sea-borne shipment. The Ukrainian audit team was led by the Energoatom’s Project Director Oleksandr Rybchuk under the executive oversight of the Company's President, Mr. Yuriy Nedashkovsky. After an exhaustive week of inspection of the project management, quality assurance, and manufacturing controls, the assessment team expressed unequivocal satisfaction with Holtec's programs, procedures, and practices succinctly captured by Director Rybchuk statement at the exit meeting: "I am very satisfied with the preparedness of all the Holtec manufacturing facilities. They have vast experience in manufacturing of similar equipment under the strict rules of quality assurance program enforced for the manufacturing of the equipment for nuclear applications. I am quite confident that with the demonstrated spirit of cooperation the Holtec and NAEK Energoatom project team will successfully complete the project on schedule.” |
