National Atomic Company “Kazatomprom” has participated in the VII International Forum «ATOMEXPO 2015», held on June 1-3, 2015, in the Exhibition Complex “Gostiny Dvor” in Moscow.
3-days program of “AtomExpo-2015” included specialized exhibition and congress attended by representatives of international, governmental and public organizations, Russian and foreign companies, leading experts and analysts in the field of nuclear industry. The theme of this forum was «Nuclear power as an impulse for social & economic development”. The Kazakhstan delegation was headed by Sergey Yashin, the First Vice Chairman of the Management Board of NAC Kazatomprom.
At the territory of exhibition complex Kazatomprom established an exposition stand devoted to the main activities of the national company: uranium mining, manufacturing of fuel pellets for nuclear reactors, development of alternative energy sources and prospects for the development of nuclear power in Kazakhstan.
During the round table “The role of nuclear fuel cycle in the current stage of nuclear power development” the Vice Chairman of Kazatomprom’s Management Board told about the company’s experience in the implementation of joint projects with foreign partners. It should be noted that Kazakhstan uranium concentrate is delivered practically to the all countries of the world where nuclear power plants exist. According to the experts the peak of uranium consumption will begin in 10-15 years.
As it was noted by the Deputy Head of Kazatomprom, one of the key factors for safe operation of nuclear power plants is ensuring of guaranteed supply of nuclear fuel that in turn implies also guarantees of raw material supply for NFC production facilities.
– Today Kazakhstan is the world leader in natural uranium production. The Republic has maintained and developed its competencies in manufacturing of nuclear fuel components, gained an experience of nuclear reactor’s decommissioning, - Sergei Yashin said. – Kazatomprom as a national company, has set itself the tasks for entry into all stages of front-end nuclear fuel cycle therefore it held the course for establishing of close cooperation relations both with countries and companies developing nuclear power industry and the companies and countries being the leaders in nuclear fuel cycle.
–“Cooperation with foreign countries has been focused on integration according to the following formula “foreign advanced NFC technologies in exchange for Kazakhstan resources”, - Yashin added..
For example, cooperation with French AREVA allowed Kazatomprom to become a certified supplier of fuel pellets to Chinese market. There are also framework agreements with «China General Nuclear Power Corporation» (CGNPC) for construction of the plant for manufacturing nuclear assemblies for Chinese nuclear power plants in Kazakhstan.
Summarizing his speech, Sergey Yashin also mentioned the joint work with the state corporation “Rosatom” under which a number of projects are successfully operating including the joint Kazakhstan-Russian company for uranium isotope enrichment.
During forum the Kazakh delegation held several meetings with representatives of foreign companies, discussed the issues and prospects for cooperation. Current nuclear forum was attended by over 2000 delegates from 47 countries.