Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled on Wednesday to inaugurate the groundwork of the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (RNPP) project, the country’s largest power plant with a capacity of 2,000 megawatt (MW) at Rooppur in Pabna.
Sergey Kirienko, director general of Russia’s state-owned corporation, Rosatom and a former prime minister of Russia, is also expected to attend the programme.
Yeafesh Osman, state minister for the ministry of science and technology, said the prime minister would lay the foundation stone of the project at the plant site at about 10am.
A high-powered Russian delegation led by Sergey Kirienko arrived in Dhaka on Tuesday. The delegation includes senior government officials, nuclear energy experts, nuclear educationists and other dignitaries.
Bangladesh signed a deal with Russia on January 14 this year, during Hasina’s visit to Moscow – on extension of state export credit to finance the preparatory stage of the nuclear power plant.
Russia has agreed to provide $500m to finance the initial stages of Bangladesh’s first nuclear power project.
The government has appointed Russian consultancy firm Atomstroyexport to supervise and monitor the construction of the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant.
The Russian firm will run a series of 63 tests and as part of pre-construction works. It will conduct feasibility evaluation (FE), environmental impact assessment (EIA) and several other assessments and surveys.
On April 2, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council approved the construction of the Rooppur plant involving a cost of Tk52.42bn, of which Tk40bn would be provided by Russia as state credit while the rest would come from local resources.
The Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, under the science and technology ministry, will implement the project.
Bangladesh plans to produce 1,000MW of electricity by June 2017 and another 1,000MW by 2022 from the RNPP. The tenure of the plant would be 60 years, with options to extend it by another 20 years.
In November 2011, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding and framework agreement.
Rosatam (Russian State Atomic Energy Commission) will build, operate and provide fuel to the plant and take its waste back to Russia regularly. The total cost of the proposed plant has been estimated at between $1.5bn and $2bn. However, the cost has not yet been finalised.
