National Nuclear Generating Company Energoatom has announced a tender to prepare a construction site for the centralized spent nuclear fuel storage facility in the period from February 20 until August 20, 2017.

According to the tender documents available in the ProZorro e-procurement system, the expected cost of the works is UAH 34.203 million (VAT included).

In November 2016, Energoatom President Yuriy Nedashkovsky said that all organization and legal issues for construction of the facility had been solved.

As reported, Energoatom and Holtec International signed a contract to build a spent nuclear fuel storage facility in 2005 after Holtec won the tender. A supplementary agreement to the contract dated January 26, 2016, foresees that Energoatom will design and build the facility, and Holtec will supply equipment. Holtec will also pass the spent nuclear fuel dry cask production technology to Ukraine.

The feasibility study worked out by the Kyiv-based Energoproekt scientific-research and design institute envisions the design capacity of the centralized spent nuclear fuel storage at 16,530 spent fuel elements, including 12,010 from the VVER-1000 power units and 4,520 from VVER-440. Meanwhile, the capacity of the start-up facility makes up 3,620 assemblies, including 2,510 from VVER-1000.

Energoatom seeks to raise $250 million from Bank of America Merrill Lynch by October 2017 to build the facility. Currently the company is financing the works using the funds included in its tariff for electricity transmission.

Energoatom is an operator of all four running Ukrainian nuclear power plants. It is operating 15 nuclear power units equipped with water-water reactors with an aggregate electric power capacity of 13,385 GW.