OREANDA-NEWS. February 6, 2009. Head of the Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Supervision (Rostekhnadzor) Nikolay Kutyin has visited “Mashinostroitelny Zavod” OJSC (“Elemash,” Elektrostal, Moscow region, subsidiary of TVEL Corporation). Kutyin inspected the whole production cycle of the plant, its physical protection system and discussed with the company’s managers safety and control problems. After the visit Kutyin told journalists that there was no doubt that Elemash was safe and efficient company. “The managers of TVEL and Elemash show high responsibility in organizing the working process at their companies. The plant works on a very high technological level while its engineers have proper understanding of the ideology of production,” Kutyin said. “We in Russia give very high priority to the safety of our nuclear power plants,” he said.

“We are on the threshold of “nuclear renaissance” and we have no right to make mistakes – even the slightest mistake may prove fatal for the future of such a vital sector as nuclear industry,” Kutyin said. As regards nuclear fuel, it undergoes tough licensing and qualification procedure. In Russia this procedure is drastically different from the world practice. Nuclear fuel in Russia undergoes the following stages: development of technical specifications of fuel assemblies; development of preliminary design of fuel assemblies (including pre-reactor testing of mock-ups); testing of pilot fuel assemblies at manufacturer-plant; reception of Rostekhnadzoir’s permission for pilot operation (reactor testing) of pilot fuel assemblies at NPP; pilot operation (reactor testing) of pilot fuel assemblies for 4 and more years; reception of permission for commercial operation of fuel assemblies at NPP.