Actuality March 20, 2008

   The Russian Atomenergoprom and the Japanese Toshiba Corporation will construct the nuclear power plants. Atomenergoprom head Vladimir Travin and Toshiba Corporation president Atsutoshi Nishida signed the agreement about the collaboration in the peaceful use of nuclear energy area. The agreement does not have the framework character yet.

Although the experts are sure that it is the first step towards the complete transnational alliance establishment which will become the leading player at the global market.

About the benefit of unions with the Russian nuclear scientists

   Atomenergoprom and Toshiba are ready to conquer the world market and to construct the nuclear power plants (NPP) in the Third World countries.

However, the Russian and Japanese companies wait when the bilateral intergovernmental agreement about the peaceful use of nuclear energy comes into effect.

   By now the world nuclear market has been divided between three transnational alliances: French-German Areva-Siemens and two American-Japanese – Toshiba-Westinghouse

and GE-Hitachi. The main intrigue is who among these majors joins the Russian Atomenergoprom. In the experts' opinion, it would automatically mean the substantial superiority of one player above the other two.

And now this superiority distinctly stands out.

   "New alliance will make nervous all international corporations in the nuclear area, because it will, probably, become the strategic one and is already the largest in the world", considers the first commission deputy chairman of the Federation council for natural monopolies Valentin Mezhevich. "The Russian corporation and Toshiba amalgamated their capacities and provided itself more competitive advantages in the nuclear engineering, NPP equipment production, NPP construction and nuclear-fuel cycle".

Trillion for all

Volume of orders at the nuclear power energy market grows every day.

More than $1 trln is on the scale in the nearest years.

   The world interest to the nuclear power energy grows for several reasons (some countries, for example the USA, begin considering to continue NPP construction after the 25-years break). First and foremost, prices for oil and gas tied to the oil products continue to grow and that makes their use rather expensive. Secondly, some countries' attempts to create more effective and cheap alternative power energy sources did not succeed yet. Thirdly, safety technologies on NPP almost eliminate the accident possibility.

   As the result many countries began the reconsider their power energy in the nuclear generation favor. In particular, the USA and China are going to construct more than 100 reactors, India – around 40, Great Britain – over 10.

The new power plants are to appear in Lithuania, Poland, Turkey, Finland, Bulgaria and other countries.

In the analysts' opinion, in the nearest and medium-term perspective the volume of orders for power units can attain 600. Thus, as the average cost of one power unit with 1 GW capacity is $2 bln, the potential volume of orders will exceed $1trln. As the comparison: it equals the aggregated annual military budget of all world countries and Russia GDP.

Synergy in nuclear

   Toshiba Corporation is the Japanese producer of nuclear reactors and specializes in boiling water reactors' technology used mainly in Asia. In 2006 the corporation purchased 77% stocks of the American Westinghouse Electric Company.

It is one of the leading suppliers of nuclear fuel, services and technologies for the pressurized water reactors. Westinghouse constructed most nuclear power plants in the USA.

   "Toshiba does not have the complete nuclear fuel cycle today.

And Russia has the substantial stake by all its segments, including the world market", explains the director general of Russia Energy Efficiency Union Semen Dragulsky. "Moreover, equipment production technology and engineering of NPP construction are now-how which Japanese have and the Russian companies do not". Also, the Japanese are able to construct NPP power unit for 36 months, while the Russian construction term is five years.

The collaboration with Toshiba brings the noticeable benefit taking into account Rosatom obligations to construct over 20 power units in Russia by 2020.

It its turn, Russia can construct the storage for low enriched uranium in Japan which almost 100% depends on the nuclear fuel supplies now.

   Moreover, there is already the concrete project for NPP construction. Atomenergoprom and Toshiba can construct Primorsk NPP (it is included to the general scheme for power energy objects location by 2020 approved by the government recently). The point is that it would be more comfortable to supply the large equipment there from Japan for logistic reasons.

   The experts do not eliminate that the joint venture with Toshiba for the NPP equipment production can appear in Russia. Last year was established the joint venture between Atomenergomash JSC and French Alstom for the low speed turbines production for nuclear industry.