The state-owned nuclear utility, Energoatom, has officially been relaunched. Energoatom president Nur Nigmatullin took the opportunity of the relaunch ceremony to pay tribute to Western assistance that has helped make the restructuring of the Ukrainian nuclear energy organisation possible, but also called on the West to meet its obligations on the completion of Rovno 2 and Khmelnitsky 4. The relaunch is seen as part of a modernisation process in the run up to privatisation.
A spokeswoman for British Energy (BE), which has been advising on the restructuring, said that Energoatom was hoping to be ready for privatisation within the next few years. She said one of the main aims of the official relaunch was to draw attention to the extent Energoatom has already changed in organisational terms over the last few years. Ukraine’s five nuclear power plants now all have managers who are members of the board of Energoatom and report directly to it – a big change from the former system, where each plant had a large degree of management independence.
