The main concrete works of the auxiliary reactor building for unit 1 of Bangladesh’s first nuclear power plant (NPP) at Rooppur has been completed 8 months ahead of schedule, according to an announcement by the Russian state atomic energy corporation Rosatom.
A Rosatom statement earlier this week said the construction time of the auxiliary reactor building, which is a part of the ‘nuclear island’ and is designed to house process instrumentation and control devices, was reduced by 241 days aided by the optimisation of logistic processes, while workplaces were timely supplied with the required resources like materials and tools.
Rosatom is the equipment supplier and technical consultant for the project to build two VVER-1200 units of 1,200 MW capacity each at Rooppur located 160 km from the Bangladesh capital, Dhaka.
The statement said the average volume of concrete laid by specialists of the Rosatom subsidiary NIKIMT-Atomstroy was at the rate of 1,600 cubic meters per month, instead of the scheduled 1,000 cubic meters.
The reduced time period in construction allowed reducing costs by saving on the semi-fixed part of overhead costs, as well as by making a significant number of highly qualified labour resources available ahead of schedule, “who have already been engaged in performance of other production tasks”, the statement added.
“The pace of work, achieved by the specialists of NIKIMT-Atomstroy, while satisfying all the stringent quality requirements, demonstrates the highest potential of the Rooppur NPP construction workers. With such high professionalism of our employees, we can safely say that construction of Bangladesh’s first NPP will be completed within the scheduled dates, despite a range of challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the complex international situation”, said the Rooppur NPP Construction Project Director, Alexey Deriy.
The installation of the reactor pressure vessel for unit 1 at the Rooppur NPP was completed in November 2021. Both the latest generation III+ 1,200 MW power units will be equipped with active as well as passive safety systems, including molten core catchers. The first unit is scheduled to start operating in 2023, followed by unit 2 in 2024.
