BAKER HUGHES WINS PETROBEL SUBSEA CONTRACT FOR SUPER GIANT ZOHR
In a signing ceremony hosted by H.E. Eng. Tarek El-Molla, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources for Egypt, Baker Hughes, a GE company announced a...
Read More+
Power unit No. 4 of the Beloyarsk NPP with the BN-800 reactor has been connected to the grid and resumed operations upon completion of the scheduled maintenance.
For the first time the refueling has been carried out with uranium-plutonium fuel only. The first batch of 18 MOX fuel assemblies was loaded into the reactor core in January 2020, and now 160 assemblies more with fresh MOX fuel have been added (replacing the assemblies with enriched uranium). Thus, the BN-800 core is now one-third filled with innovative fuel. From now on, only MOX fuel will be loaded into this reactor.
“Beloyarsk NPP has become one step closer to implementing the strategic goal of the nuclear industry development - the new technological platform based on closed nuclear fuel cycle. This means that using MOX fuel will make it possible to involve the uranium that is not currently used in the fuel manufacturing and expand the resource feed-stock of the nuclear power industry. In addition, the BN-800 reactor can re-use spent nuclear fuel from other NPPs and minimize radioactive waste by “afterburning” long-lived isotopes from them. Taking into account the schedule, we will be able to switch to the core fully loaded with MOX fuel already in 2022”, Ivan Sidorov, Director of the Beloyarsk NPP, commented.
The fuel assemblies were manufactured at the Mining and Chemical Combine (MCC, Zheleznogorsk, Krasnoyarsk region). Distinct from traditional nuclear fuel with enriched uranium, MOX fuel pellets are based on the mix of nuclear fuel cycle derivatives, such as oxide of plutonium bred in commercial reactors, and oxide of depleted uranium which comes from defluorination of depleted uranium hexafluoride (UF6), the so-called secondary tailings of uranium enrichment facilities.
The BN-800 reactor was initially launched with a hybrid core, partially loaded with uranium fuel produced by Elemash, TVEL’s fabrication facility in Elektrostal (Moscow region), and partially with experimental MOX fuel bundles manufactured at the Research Institute of Atomic Reactors in Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk region (NIIAR).
(Source: Rosatom) – Image: Beloyarsk NPP)
In a signing ceremony hosted by H.E. Eng. Tarek El-Molla, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources for Egypt, Baker Hughes, a GE company announced a...
Read More+This week saw the last of the 67 wind turbines being installed on the Dudgeon field and all of them are now producing electricity. During October, the...
Read More+CHC Helicopter celebrated the inaugural flight of CHC’s new Airbus H175 super-medium aircraft to the Ocean Patriot. “I am delighted to see the H175...
Read More+DNO ASA, the Norwegian oil and gas operator, announced an agreement with ExxonMobil to join the Baeshiqa license in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. DNO will...
Read More+In the late summer of 1977, NASA launched the twin Voyager spacecraft. These remote ambassadors still beam messages back to Earth 40 years later, with...
Read More+A snailfish was filmed in the Mariana Trench at depths of 8,178 m, exceeding the past record of 8,152 m by 26 m. The depth was determined by conductivity,...
Read More+DNV GL’s Energy Transition Outlook (ETO), a forecast that spans the global energy mix to 2050, predicts that global demand for energy will flatten in...
Read More+Cenovus Energy has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Pelican Lake heavy oil operations, as well as other miscellaneous assets in northern...
Read More+Heerema Marine Contractor’s semi-submersible crane vessel Hermod, an icon of the offshore industry, will retire at the end of this year after an impressive...
Read More+The Shah Deniz consortium announced the launch of the Khankendi - a new flagship vessel for the Caspian. The state-of-the-art subsea construction vessel...
Read More+Statoil has completed a transaction with ExxonMobil Exploration and Production South Africa Limited (ExxonMobil), acquiring a 35% interest in Exploration...
Read More+GeoPark, a leading independent Latin American oil and gas explorer, operator and consolidator with operations and growth platforms in Colombia, Chile,...
Read More+