OREANDA-NEWS. August 26, 2010. The agreement was signed following the results of negotiations of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Armenian President Serzh Sargasyan. The Head of Russia is in Armenia with a state visit.

Armenia is planning to construct a new NPP power unit with capacity about 1,000 mW. According to Armenian Ministry of Energy, the project may cost about 5 billion dollars. In 2006 the Parliament of Armenia abolished the state monopoly on possession of new nuclear power units in order to attract foreign investments for the project realization. The construction works are to be started in 2011. As it was said by Head of Rosatom Sergey Kiriyenko prior to the document execution, Russia could finance more than 20% of the nuclear plant construction in Armenia.

According to him, the joint Russian-Armenian company for the NPP construction has already been established. It shall provide not less than 40% of the nuclear plant cost and it is planned to get 60% with the help of foreign investors. Upon that Kiriyenko added that the precise cost of the NPP construction was not yet clear and everything would depend on the “filling” which will be selected for the NPP.

As for investors, the negotiations on their attraction are held by Armenian Government.

At present Armenia operates the only one region’s nuclear power plant – Armenian NPP, which is situated in Metsamor city. The plant was commissioned in 1976, at present it operates only the second power unit with capacity of 407.5 mW. Since September 2003 till 2013 the financial flows of ANPP have been under the trust management of InterRAO UES CJSC (owned by Rosatom). According to the specialists’ research, ANPP can operate till 2016.