The Kremlin reacted to the plans of Britain and the United States to squeeze Russia out of the nuclear energy market

The Kremlin is concerned about the announcement of the UK and the US plans to counteract Russia in the global nuclear energy market. This was announced on June 9 by the press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov.

“As for unfair competition, we had to deal with it too. Yes, this is what causes our concern,” Peskov said, commenting on the US and UK statement. He stressed that individual states “do not disdain anything in the course of competition in international markets.”

On June 8, the United States and Great Britain announced the conclusion of a new economic partnership, which will be aimed, among other things, at squeezing Russia out of the nuclear energy market. This is stated in the “Atlantic Declaration”, published by the office of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

“To support the critical clean energy industry, our ambitions to achieve carbon neutrality and keep Russia out of the global civilian nuclear power market, the UK and US will launch a new civilian nuclear power partnership,” the document says. Peskov stressed that the Russian nuclear industry “proved its leadership as a result of fierce competition,” and the position of the Russian atom “is quite strong.”

After the strengthening of anti-Russian sanctions in the spring of 2022, European politicians have repeatedly advocated the imposition of sanctions against Rosatom, but no serious measures have been taken in the EU. In April 2023, the United States approved sanctions against a subsidiary of the Rusatom Overseas Corporation, which is responsible for building nuclear science and technology centers abroad. And on May 19, Great Britain included 9 structures of Rosatom in the sanctions list, in March the general director of the state corporation Alexei Likhachev fell under British sanctions. Then the editor-in-chief of the industry resource Atominfo.ru Alexander Uvarov told Vedomosti that the sanctions “are of a targeted nature” and do not affect the most important areas of Rosatom’s business – the construction of new nuclear power plants and the sale of fuel.

At the same time, against the backdrop of sanctions pressure from Western countries, some customers in Europe have already begun to abandon joint projects with Rosatom. In April last year, the Finnish Fennovoima announced the termination of the contract with the Russian state corporation for the construction of the Hanhikivi-1 nuclear power plant, accusing “Rosatom» in the disruption of the project. Fennovoima tried to recover about 2 billion euros from Rosatom in the arbitration court, including 800 million euros of an advance payment in favor of the Finnish subsidiary of Rosatom, RAOS Project. In response, Rosatom reported six lawsuits filed against the Finnish company.

In December 2022, the state corporation announced that the Dispute Resolution Board confirmed the illegality of termination of the contract by Fennovoima. According to the council’s decision, the illegal termination of the contract is a material breach of its terms, which gives Rosatom’s Finnish subsidiary the right to claim damages. Their amount will be determined in further proceedings, the company noted.

The contract between Rosatom and Fennovoima was signed at the end of 2013, the cost of the nuclear power plant was estimated at 7–7.5 billion euros. Shares in the project are distributed as follows: the Russian state corporation owns 34%, the Finnish shareholders – 66%.

The main activities of SC Rosatom in the field of peaceful atom are the construction of nuclear power plants and the supply of nuclear fuel for them. In early February, Likhachev reported that Rosatom was “close to concluding agreements on the construction of nuclear power plants with 3-4 new countries.” On the same day, the press service of the state corporation reported that Russia and Myanmar had signed an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the field of peaceful atom.

Also in February, the company specified that the construction of the Paks-2 NPP in Hungary would begin in 2024. At the end of April, Russia and Turkey officially formalized the delivery of nuclear fuel to power unit No. 1 of the Akkuyu NPP, and in early May, construction began on the third power unit of the El-Dabaa NPP with the participation of Rosatom.

In total, according to the official website of the corporation, 19 nuclear units with a total capacity of 22.8 GW are currently being built abroad with the participation of Rosatom in Turkey, China, India, Egypt, Hungary and Bangladesh. In December 2022, Likhachev said in an interview with Izvestiya that Rosatom’s order portfolio “stands steadily at $200 billion for ten years ahead”, and export revenue for 2022 will exceed $10 billion (+15% by 2021. ).

In Russia, the capacity of nuclear power plants managed by Rosenergoatom (part of Rosatom) is 24.45 GW. The total installed capacity of all types of generation in Russia, according to the “System Operator” (dispatcher of the energy system of the Russian Federation), as of January 1, 2023, was 247.6 GW.

Rosatom is one of the largest suppliers of nuclear fuel with a high content of low enriched uranium (HALEU). In October 2022, Reuters wrote, citing US authorities and representatives of American companies, that the United States is trying to replace Russian fuel to power small modular nuclear reactors under development. The country’s authorities are looking for an opportunity to use part of their uranium reserves to load new reactors.

Alexander Uvarov, editor-in-chief of the industry resource Atominfo.ru, believes that the statement by the United States and Great Britain is still “an element of psychological pressure.” According to him, the UK and the US still have nuclear technologies, but their successes are not great: the US in the 21st century was only able to complete one nuclear unit and launch another new one, the UK is forced to build nuclear power plants in a consortium with Chinese companies that provide funding.

According to Uvarov, in order to squeeze Rosatom out of the world nuclear market, unfriendly Western countries can adopt an appropriate regulatory framework, but this will take time. “In this situation, the Russian state corporation should expand to the markets of friendly countries where there is a great interest in nuclear energy – for example, to Asia and Africa. There is solvent demand here and there,” Uvarov notes. He also recalls that Russia will also have to replace nuclear units that are failing (new power units will be built at the Kursk, Leningrad and Smolensk nuclear power plants to replace the retired ones – Vedomosti).