KOLONTAYEVO (Moscow Region), October 21 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine is set to sign three nuclear fuel deals with Russia by the end of this year, the president of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant operator Energoatom said on Tuesday.
Yuriy Nedashkovskiy said two of the deals involved fuel supplies for Ukrainian nuclear power plants, while the other covers the production and enrichment of nuclear fuel from Ukrainian raw materials.
Nedashkovskiy said Energoatom planned to sign nuclear fuel contracts with the Russian state-controlled nuclear fuel producer TVEL.
"We plan to sign a contract with TVEL on "customer-owned" raw materials by the end of the year. Moreover, we plan to sign it earlier than agreements for nuclear fuel supplies for Ukrainian nuclear power plants," Nedashkovskiy said.
Under a contract on "customer-owned" raw materials, Ukraine will supply uranium to Russia for enrichment to be subsequently delivered to Ukrainian nuclear power plants as nuclear fuel.
Ukraine plans to sign a long-term contract with Russia on Russian nuclear fuel supplies for all Ukrainian nuclear power plants from 2010 after the expiry of the current agreement.
Nedashkovskiy said Ukraine could only cover 30% of its uranium requirements at the present time and planned to switch to full supplies of Ukrainian nuclear fuel for its domestic nuclear power plants from 2015