Ukraine

Hungary cuts off natural gas shipments to Ukraine

Monday, September 29, 2014

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary unexpectedly cut off natural gas shipments to Ukraine on Thursday, days after getting assurances from Russian supplier Gazprom that it would get enough deliveries to fill up its own gas storage facilities.

Hungary had been sending an estimated 3 million cubic meters of natural gas a day to Ukraine, which has not received any from Russia since June. But FGSZ, Hungary's gas transmission firm, said it suspended the flow to Ukraine indefinitely to ensure pipeline capacity for incoming deliveries as it builds its own reserves.

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Ukraine to sign reactor contract in months

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Ukraine plans to sign an agreement to construct new nuclear power reactors by the end of this year, Ukrainian prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told the country's cabinet of ministers today.

"The problem is that the [planned] units were designed according to Russian reactors, but we are finding a solution and intend to sign an agreement on the construction of new units by the end of this year," Yatsenyuk said, according to Russian news agency Itar-Tass.

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Russia claims it is still talking with Ukraine over nuclear project

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Russia’s nuclear agency Rosatom has said that negotiations are still underway on expanding Ukraine’s Khmelnitsky Nuclear Power Plant despite reports this week that Ukraine had cancelled the project.

As tensions mounted in Ukraine yesterday, with its government announcing the capture of nine Russian soldiers on Ukrainian territory, a Rosatom representative told Russian news agency RIA Novosti that it had not received any notice about Ukraine’s pulling out of the construction project to build the third and fourth power units at the plant, and that both sides are continuing negotiations.

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Ukraine moves to crack Russia's hold on its nuclear power

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

It's not just natural gas that keeps Ukraine under Russia's thumb. Almost all the fuel for Ukraine's 15 nuclear reactors comes from Russia, too.

But just as Ukraine is struggling to diversify away from Russian natural gas, it is also eager to break Moscow's virtual monopoly over its nuclear fuel.

Pennsylvania-based Westinghouse Electric Co. told various media outlets this week it will renew a contract with Ukraine's Energoatom that will extend and expand its flow of nuclear fuel to the struggling nation. The deal is valued at $100 million.

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Power prices in Ukraine expected to double to pay for nuclear safety

Friday, January 24, 2014

EXCLUSIVE / Electricity prices in Ukraine are expected to double to help pay for a series of safety upgrades to old Soviet nuclear power stations, according to a leaked report by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

EBRD, a public sector bank investing in Eastern Europe and elsewhere on behalf of 64 countries and the European Union, last year announced a €300 million loan to the Ukrainian state nuclear power company, Energoatom. It is the largest nuclear safety loan the bank has made.

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France Predict Cost of Nuclear Disaster to be Over Three Times their GDP

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Catastrophic nuclear accidents, like Chernobyl in 1986 or Fukushima No. 1 in 2011, are very rare, we’re incessantly told, and their probability of occurring infinitesimal. But when they do occur, they get costly. So costly that the French government, when it came up with cost estimates, kept them secret.

But now the report was leaked to the French magazine, Le Journal de Dimanche. Turns out, the upper end of the cost spectrum of an accident at a single reactor at the plant chosen for the study, the plant at Dampierre in the Department of Loiret in north-central France, would amount to over three times the country’s GDP. Financially, France would cease to exist as we know it.

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EBRD contributes to safety of Ukraine’s nuclear power stations

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

The FINANCIAL -- The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has decided to participate in a comprehensive safety upgrade programme for the operating nuclear power units of Ukraine with a €300 million loan.

The programme will bring the fleet of Ukraine ’s nuclear power plants in line with international safety standards, including those of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

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Power unit shut down at Rivne nuclear power plant

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Reactor 3 of the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant automatically shut down due to the fall of the water level in the steam generators and the shutdown of the main circulation pumps.

The shutdown occurred at 7:54 a.m., the press service for the state enterprise National Nuclear Generating Company Energoatom has reported.

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EU energy chief says nuclear stress tests need time

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

BRUSSELS, March 6 (Reuters) - European Union safety tests on nuclear plants should be completed by around the middle of the year as time is needed to ensure they are thorough enough, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said.

In comments ahead of the anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster on March 11, Oettinger said stress tests would be completed "not later than summer".

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Russia combats wildfires in Chernobyl radiation zone

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Russia is mounting extra patrols to fight wildfires in a region hit by nuclear fallout from Chernobyl, amid fears that radiation could spread.

Crews put out several fires in Bryansk, the emergencies ministry said, amid concern that wind or fire could whip up radioactive particles in the soil.

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