LONDON, August 2 (Itar-Tass) — Vladimir Putin hopes that Russia’s state corporation Rosatom and the British corporation Rolls Royce will be able to pool efforts in building nuclear power plants in Britain and in the third countries.
As he answered reporters’ questions at the end of a brief visit to Britain, he said nuclear power engineering might become one of the areas of Russian-British economic cooperation.
“We might arrange cooperation between Rosatom and Rolls Royce in what concerns projects in third countries and might then consider cooperation on the British market because Britons have big plans for developing the nuclear power industry,” Putin said.
Rosatom director Sergei Kiriyenko said earlier Rosatom does not rule out a possibility of joining the Horizon project for building a new generation nuclear plant in Britain.
“We’re scrutinizing this opportunity because that’s a very interesting project,” he said.
Experts say in this connection Rosatom has fair chances to aspire to entering the British market of electric power production.
Sergei Novikov, an aide to Rosatom’s director told Itar-Tass that “the British market of nuclear power engineering is really attractive for Rosatom,” which is offering to its partners at present the nuclear plant equipped with the generation 3 Plus nuclear reactors.
The latter have the most up-to-date passive safety systems in the world.
“This means that if the British project is implemented in practical terms then it will meet all the international requirements for safety and the norms set forth by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Rosatom fully guarantees this,” Novikov said.
Alexander Ignatyuk, the chief of analysis department at IK Energokapital investment company, said: “Even if Rosatom fails to win a bidding contest for the replacement of German partners in the Horizon project, it may anyway turn up among the favorites of the bidding, in the first place thanks to its flexibility in the issues of redistribution of profits.
“In case of Britain, this /joining the project/ will means entering a political zone that is entirely new for the Russian nuclear power industry,” Ignatyuk said. “Any expenses there from the public relations campaigns to the distribution of subcontracts will help Rosatom show the Europeans the benefits of cooperation with it.”