Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom expects to receive RUB21.2bn (£336m) from the government in 2017 for the completion and construction of new NPPs, according to the draft budget. Funding for 2018 and 2019 is put at RUB20.5bn and RUB20.1bn respectively. The federal target programme (FTP) "Nuclear Power Technologies of New Generation in 2010-2015 and until 2020" should receive RUB4.4bn in 2018 and RUB2.7bn in 2019.
The FTP "Development of Nuclear Power Industry" will be allocated RUB68.7bn in 2017 and projects on the construction of nuclear-powered icebreakers RUB 15.1bn. In addition, RUB17bn may be allocated to finance the programme, "Provision of industrial, technological and socio-economic processes of sustainable development of nuclear weapons complex RF and strategic presence of Russia in the Arctic zone”. The construction of small NPPs is budgeted at RUB1.5bn in 2017-2018.
In a meeting with the new head of Rosatom, Aleksey Likhachev, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev wished him success and said he expects to see a continuation of the progress made in recent years in the industry. "In my view, in recent years Rosatom has seen many positive changes. It has built up a substantial backlog of orders, and increased the volume of construction at home and abroad. The credibility of our nuclear industry is very high. I hope that you will be able to support everything that has been done.”
Likachev said he expected to see good results at the end of this year. He added that revenue will reach RUB805bn billion and that the average salary of employees of the industry is increasing and should soon exceed RUB70,000 a month. "An important target is power generation,” he noted, “on 10 October we have reached a figure of 145.2TWh against the annual target of 196.7TWh billion kWh." He hoped to exceed this and to produce more than 200RWh.
He also said that Rosatom plans to increase the portfolio of orders for the construction of NPPs abroad to $137bn this year, up from $110bn at the start of 2016. In Russia work is continuing on construction of new units Kursk, Rostov, Leningrad and Novovoronezh NPPs.
