The Russian experts are elaborating the details of the insurance payments from Ukraine in the case of any accidents on the Ukrainian nuclear power plants, which will use the Westinghouse-origin fuel.

The AtomInfo.Ru learned from the informed sources, that the partial transfer of the Ukrainian NPPs to the U.S.-made fuel could be interpreted as a violation of the Russian industry's rights. From the legal point of view, it means that the responsibility for all the accidents on such NPPs will be paid the Ukrainian side.

"There is the Vienna convention on civil liability for nuclear damage. There are the Paris convention and Brussels convention… Well, there are differences between these documents, but the main common point is like this - if you are guilty, you have to pay rather than talk about some exceptional circumstances", sources say.

Ukraine has joined the Vienna convention in 1996 based on the Ukrainian law #334/96-VR. This gives the possibility to obtain the compensation for the population of the Russian regions being in danger due to the risky experiments of the Ukrainian nuclear industry.

Moscow considers also the situation when Ukraine will reject to pay the compensations making reference to lack of money in the state budget. It is possible that Ukraine will be obliged to create and show to the world community the nuclear liability pool before arrival of first batch of U.S. fuel. Worthy to mention, that the liability payment may reach up to 10 bln USD for each accident. If the pool will not be created, the U.S.-Ukrainian contract could be cancelled after intervention of the international arbitrary courts.

On March 30, 2008, the NAEK "Energoatom" and the Westinghouse have signed the contract for fresh nuclear fuel supply to at least three Ukrainian nuclear units in 2011-2015. Earlier, two countries - Czecz and Finland - have rejected the U.S.-made fuel for the VVER-1000 reactor by the technical reasons.

SOURCE: AtomInfo.Ru

DATE: April 06, 2008

Topics: NFC, Westinghouse, East Europe, Czech, Safety