French Novarka to repair shelter at Ukraine's Chernobyl

Aug 7, 2007, 12:39 GMT

Kiev - The French construction company Novarka will repair an ageing protective shelter built over the radioactive remains of Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power station, a senior Ukrainian official said on Tuesday.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will fund the project for a planned 472 million dollars, said Nestor Shufich, head of Ukraine's Ministry of Emergency Situations, at a Kiev press conference.

The EBRD awarded Novarka the contract after a competitive tender, Shufrich said. A construction contract between Novarka and the Ukrainian government will be signed 'in the future,' he added.

The EBRD opened the tender in 2004. A competing joint bid from US CH2M Hill and Ukrainian Interbudmontazh lost out as its offer to to the job cost 584 million dollars, according to the report.

Site of the world's worst-ever nuclear power accident in 1986, the remains of an exploded reactor at the Chernobyl station are enclosed in a reinforced concrete structure almost always referred to, in Ukraine, as 'The Sarcophagus'.

Exposure to weather and poor construction standards used during the sarcophagus' erection 21 years ago have left the structure weak, and in places open to the environment.

Novarka has proposed building a new shelter around the existing sarcophagus, and possibly removing the most dangerous contents to a newly-constructed, modern containment structure, guaranteed to stand for at least a century.

A multi-national assembly of donor nations and agencies including the EBRD has pledged more than 1 billion dollars to the project. Novarka will receive up to 671 million dollars (470 million Euros) from the EBRD for the construction project and other associated jobs, a bank official said.

Besides construction and dealing with the still-hot radioactive materials at the station, fund money also will go towards environmental protection and local economic assistance, according to the report.