KIEV, September 24. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukraine is studying “all possible options” for completing the Khmelnitsky power plant power units’ construction that had previously been planned in partnership with Russia, Energoatom president Yuri Nedashkovsky said on Wednesday morning.

“All the necessary project and financial studies” will be most likely completed by this December, the head of Ukraine’s National Nuclear Energy Generating Company said at a roundtable discussion on Ukraine’s power industry development.

“We are currently considering all possible options and making a trade-off study whether it should be two power units or one unit, the initial or other projects,” said the Energoatom head.

Russia’s Atomstroiexport (a subsidiary of Rosatom Corporation), which won the international tender in 2008, has been Ukraine’s partner in the power units’ construction.

The Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers and Russia’s government signed on June 9, 2010 a framework agreement on the power units’ completion.

Ukraine is also preparing proposals on the use of the 1000-MW second power unit of the Khmelnitsky NPP for exporting electricity to European countries, Nedashkovsky said. “We study the possibility of employing the second power unit of the Khmelnitsky NPP to expand the Burshtyn power island, we have created a joint working group comprising Energoatom, Ukrenergo, our Polish colleagues participate in the study of this option, and we will soon involve the Hungarian colleagues,” he said.

According to him, the Ukrainian delegation will travel to Poland next week for negotiations on this issue.

“I think by the end of the year we will be able to present to our government the options for atomic energy export to Europe. This will be the first step towards European integration of Ukraine’s energy system,” Nedashkovsky said.

Ukraine exports electricity to countries of Eastern Europe from the so-called Burshtyn thermal power plant island (located in the west of the country, it is integrated with the European Union’s power transmission system) to Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. Ukraine’s electricity is also exported to Poland, Belarus and Moldova.