OREANDA-NEWS. November 11, 2008. Ukraine is interested in long-term cooperation with Russia in the field of peaceful use of nuclear energy, Fuel and Energy Minister of Ukraine Yuri Prodan said while visiting Mashinostroitelny Zavod (Elemash) on Oct 10 2008.

“Ukraine is the biggest consumer of nuclear fuel because we have the biggest number of WWER reactors – even more than in Russia and other countries. Of course, we are interested in serious long-term cooperation with Russia. We are not only planning to remain the biggest consumer of Russian nuclear fuel but also to set up production of own nuclear fuel and here we do need cooperation with our Russian colleagues,” Prodan said.

Ukraine has four nuclear power plants with WWERs (water water energy reactor).

On Monday Prodan met with Director General of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation Sergey Kiriyenko. “The parties have discussed the whole spectrum of cooperation in the field of peaceful use of nuclear energy,” says a representative of the press service of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation.

Earlier, President of Energoatom company (Ukraine) Yuri Nedashkovsky said that Ukraine was planning to sign three contracts with Russia by the end of 2008: two contracts for supply of nuclear fuel for Ukrainian nuclear power plants and one — for enrichment and production of nuclear fuel from Ukrainian raw materials.

Under the last contract Ukraine will supply uranium to Russia while Russia will enrich it into nuclear fuel for Ukrainian nuclear power plants. In 2010 Russia and Ukraine are expected to sign a long-term contract for supply of Russian nuclear fuel to all Ukrainian NPPs.

Nedashkovsky also said that Ukraine met just 30% of its demand but in 2015 it was planning to start supplying its NPPs with exclusively Ukrainian fuel.