Rosatom may sign master contract on nuclear center construction in Bolivia shortly

MOSCOW, August 4. /TASS/. Russia’s nuclear power corporation Rosatom is about to sign a master contract on construction of a nuclear research center in Bolivia, its First Deputy CEO Kirill Komarov said Thursday. "We are planning to agree and sign with our Bolivian partners a master contract on construction of a center for nuclear research and technologies at the territory of the Plurinational State of Bolivia as well as a contract on a set of services for its life cycle," Komarov was quoted as saying by the press service of the Rusatom International Network. Among the first commercial projects related to the nuclear center signed by the Bolivian Atomic Energy Agency (ABEN) are the one on preliminary engineering surveys regarding the construction of the center with Rosatom’s engineering subsidiary Atomstroyexport, and on estimation of the state of Bolivia’s national nuclear infrastructure with Rusatom Service. The cost of the contracts has not been unveiled. As was reported earlier on March 6, 2016 Russia and Bolivia signed an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the area of peaceful use of nuclear energy and on cooperation in the construction of a nuclear research and technology center in the city of El Alto at an altitude of 4,100 meters above sea level. The plan is to equip the center with a test multipurpose gamma-ray unit on the basis of a research light water-cooled and moderated reactor with a capacity of up to 200 kilowatt, a cyclotron, an engineering unit and a laboratory unit. The project estimated at $300 mln aimed at assisting Bolivia on development of nuclear technologies to be used in the research sector, medicine, geology and agriculture, will be implemented jointly with Russia’s Rosatom and will be funded using the country’s own resources. Read more