ASTANA (TCA) — Japan’s Toshiba Corp. may deliver a reactor for the first-ever nuclear power plant to be constructed in Kazakhstan, Japanese media reported.
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Kazakhstan originally planned to use nuclear reactors produced in Russia, with which it has maintained a close relationship. However, Kazakhstan has become more cautious toward excessive dependence on Russia for energy, which apparently helped Toshiba win the order, the Yomiuri Shimbun wrote.On September 30, 2014, Kazakhstan and Russia approved a draft of the inter-governmental agreement on the construction and maintenance of a nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan. The document was signed by Kazakhstan Energy Minister Vladimir Shkolnik and head of Russia’s Rosatom state nuclear energy corporation, Sergey Kirienko.
According to the agreement Kazakhstan’s first nuclear power plant will be constructed in the town of Kurchatov in the east of the country.
Kazakhstan has decided to build nuclear power plants and develop domestic production of nuclear fuel for them based on the fact that the country is a world leader in uranium production. Given the deficit of electricity today and in the future, the Kazakh government has chosen the city of Kurchatov in the east of the country, the center of the closed Semipalatinsk nuclear testing site, as the place for construction of the first nuclear power plant.
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