Rooppur N Power Plant gets fresh batch of uranium today

PABNA, Oct 4 (UNB): Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (RNPP) is going to officially receive a fresh batch of uranium from the Russian contractor, Rosatom, at a formal "Graduation Ceremony" today (Thursday).
According to official sources, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin are expected to virtually join the historic ceremony to mark the occasion.
Sources said Director-General of the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom, Aleksey Likhachev, will hand over the fuel officially to the project authority in Rooppur project.
Science and Technology Minister Architect Yeafesh Osman will preside over the function while Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will join the ceremony through video conference.
Md. Ali Hossain, Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology, said that all arrangements are ready for making the Graduation Ceremony a success.

"We have made all necessary arrangements to mark the historic moment," he told UNB.
Earlier, the first batch of uranium, the nuclear fuel of the first unit of Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, arrived in Bangladesh on September 28.
The consignment of uranium arrived in Dhaka from Russia through a special air cargo and it was moved to the nuclear power plant site by road under heavy security the next day.
The nuclear fuel was brought to Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka by a special plane from a factory in Russia.
The fuel was produced at the Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant (NCCP) in Russia, a subsidiary of Rosatom's fuel manufacturing company Tevel.
Rosatom, as a Russian contractor, has been engaged in building the 2400 MW Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant with two units, each with the capacity of producing 1200 MW electricity.
The nuclear reactor of the first unit of the power plant was loaded in October 2021 while reactor for second unit was installed in October 2022.
The government conceived the idea of setting up the RNPP project in 2009 and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Russian Federation on May 13 in 2009 on the "Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy."
On January 15, 2013, an agreement regarding State Export Credit of US$ 500 million was signed for carrying out preparatory phase construction works of Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant. The government signed a US$12.65 billion general contract (GC) in 2015 with the Russian Federation for building the nuclear power plant in Rooppur.
Bangladesh signed a credit agreement with Russia to obtain $11.385 billion Russian credit for RNPP in July 2016. The credit covers 90 percent of the project cost.
Science and Technology Minister Yeafesh Osman has said that it will take about one and a half years to commission the first unit of 2400 MW Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant.
"We hope we can commission the first unit of the Rooppur NPP in next one and a half years," he said while talking to reporters at the site of the plant on Wednesday.
Project director of the Rooppur NPP Dr Shawkat Akbar said that the first unit would come into operation by September next year.
The minister also told reporters that the Rooppur NPP would add 2.0 per cent to the gross domestic products (GDP).
He said there is a lot of issues like readiness of transmission lines to supply power from the project.