The director general of Russian state nuclear coporation Rosatom, Aleksey Likhachev, told Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at a working meeting on 6 May that Rosatom has work for the next ten years and that, for the first time, its revenue has exceeded RUB1,000bn ($15bn). This followed a 22 April meeting of Rosatom’s Supervisory Board, where the results of its activities were finally approved.
Likhachev added that investments were also at a record level at RUB25bn, while the share of budget financing is gradually decreasing with subsidies from the budget being replaced by Rosatom’s own funds. Rosatom plans over the next five years to double foreign revenue to more than $15 billion, Likhachev said.
"It is important to emphasise that the key focus of our further growth is foreign markets. We achieved $6.6 billion in revenue last year and set ambitious goals for 2019," he said. "We plan to exceed $15 billion by 2024."
More than half o the revenue from new businesses is provided by enterprises of the nuclear weapons complex or defence companies, noted Likhachev, adding that in 2018 Rosatom had fulfilled the state defence order by 100%.
Likhachev promised to bring the number of new jobs created by Rosatom to 25,000 over the next five years. “We attach great importance to the training of personnel. High-tech jobs have been created – more than 11,000 over the past five years,” he said. He added that Rosatom has its own system of personnel training, the final product of which is graduates from supporting universities.
Rosatom's contributions to social funds, local budgets and the federal budget are growing and have reached RUB25bn, Likhachev noted. Wages are increasing by 7% a year and labour productivity by 9% a year, he said. Likhachev reported on the participation of Rosatom in national projects. He also spoke about assuming management of the Atomflot state corporation. When Rosatom took over, subsidies from the federal budget were twice the revenues. “We increased proceeds to almost RUB7 billion last year," he noted, and subsidies will end in 2020. He emphasied that since 2013, Atomflot has only been spending state funds on the production of fuel for icebreakers that are under construction.
Prime Minister Medvedev said nuclear science and technology should not be a separate national project, but that its industry development strategy should be part of the National Science project. He was responding to a statement by Likhachev that Rosatom, together with the Kurchatov Institute and the Russian Academy of Sciences, had formulated ideas for the national project "Atomic Science, Engineering and Technology" to consolidate the position of Russian nuclear scientists in international markets and strengthen leadership in the years 2030-2040. “The activities related to the second half of our century, with the development of thermonuclear energy, are immersed in the project,” he said.
In late April, Medvedev had instructed Rosatom to form a proposal for a project aimed at developing the domestic civilian nuclear industry, including the development of science and technology in the field of nuclear energy, by November of this year. It is planned that the new project will highlight four major areas – the development of two-component nuclear power technologies based on fast-neutron reactors, research in the field of fusion science and technology, the creation of new materials and technologies for promising energy systems, as well as projects of nuclear power plants of low power.
Likhachev said highlights of last year include the commissioning of Rostov 4 and Leningrad II- 1. In addition, construction of Novovoronezh II-2 has been completed. The biggest success of the past year was the completion of the first floating NPP, which expects an operating licence in July and will be towed it to Pevek in August.
On 6 May, the government gave Rosatom the right to check the documents of NPPs under construction abroad. President Vladimir Putin signed the law granting the Rosatom the authority to conduct inspections of design documentation for facilities being built outside of Russia with the use of budget funds. The procedure for conducting inspections will be set by Rosatom, which will issue conclusions on the compliance or non-compliance of project documentation and engineering surveys with the requirements of the legislation of the country where the facility is planned to be built, as well as the requirements of Russian technical regulations. Currently, there is no organisation authorised to conduct such inspections, the deputy general director of Rosatom, Sergey Novikov.
