Ukraine is ramping its uranium mining capacity up and could become self-sufficient in uranium three years from now, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has said.
"We've launched the extensive development of our uranium deposits we're doing everything in such a way as to have [only] our own uranium in three years," she said at an annual meeting of the World Congress of Ukrainians in Lviv on Thursday.
Tymoshenko confirmed plans to build Ukraine's own nuclear fuel plant, talks about which were being conducted with potential partners such as Westinghouse and Holtec.
Ukraine only produces around 1,000 tonnes of the 2,500 tonnes of uranium concentrate it requires per year. The country's overall uranium reserves are approximately 180,000 tonnes.
Ukraine has said it plans to open a nuclear fuel plant by 2015 and has been discussing this with Westinghouse and Russia's TVEL.
TVEL is currently the only supplier of nuclear power plant fuel to Ukraine. The Yuzhnoukrainsk NPP has been testing Westinghouse fuel at its third reactor since 2005. This co-exists with Russian fuel at present.
Westinghouse plans to supply Ukrainian nuclear power plant operator Energoatom with 42 fuel assemblies for the Yuzhnoukrainsk NPP third reactor in 2009-2010. If the tests are successful, Energoatom will order enough fuel from Westinghouse after 2010 to recharge the three generating units each year.
Energoatom operates all of Ukraine's functioning nuclear power plants - the Zaporizhia, Yuzhnoukrainsk, Rivne and Khmelnytsky plants - with 15 VVER reactors and installed capacity of 13,835 megawatts.
Skhidny Mining (Skhidny GOK) is Ukraine's and Europe's biggest uranium miner. It produced 830 tonnes of concentrate in 2008, and earlier reports said it aims to be producing 2,500 tonnes by 2015.
