Rosatom chief holds talks with Tarique Rahman

High-level officials from Bangladesh and Russia attend the meeting

Alexey Likhachev, the head of Russia’s state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, has met with Prime Minister Tarique Rahman in Dhaka for discussions on bilateral cooperation.

The meeting took place at 10am on Tuesday at the Prime Minister’s Office in the Cabinet Division of the Secretariat, his press wing said.

Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman and Science and Technology Minister Faqir Mahbub Anam were present during the talks.

Rehan Asif Asad, the prime minister’s ICT advisor and Russian Ambassador Alexander Grigoryevich Khozin also attended the session.

The meeting precedes the official start of uranium fuel loading at the first unit of the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant in Pabna’s Ishurdi, an event Likhachev is scheduled to attend.

Under the current roadmap, experimental power generation from the first unit is expected to kick off by late July or early August, within three months of the fuel loading.

Initially, 300MW of electricity will be added to the national grid, with production scaling up to reach full capacity by January 2027.

Built on the banks of the Padma River with a 12.65 billion dollar price tag, the project will generate a total of 2,400MW from its two units.

Experts suggest that the plant’s activation will shift the optics of the country's energy landscape, reducing the friction caused by expensive imported liquid fuels and meeting nearly 10 percent of the national electricity demand.