Padma port ready to receive large equipment for Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant

A freight water terminal located on the bank of Padma river near the site of Bangladesh’s first nuclear power plant project in Pabna’s Rooppur has gone fully operational.

The port is intended for receiving process equipment for the construction and further operation of the power plant, including the delivery of fresh fuel.

The port on Padma river is operating normally, receiving both construction cargo and process equipment, Russian nuclear energy firm Rosatom said in a statement on Friday.

Main components of the Reactor Compartment of Unit 1, such as VVER-1200 reactor pressure vessel, four steam generators and polar crane, will be delivered to the construction site this year through this cargo terminal, said SG Lastochkin, vice president and director of the Rooppur NPP construction project.

Transportation of large oversized cargo for the plant will be transported by sea from St Petersburg and Novorossiysk to Mongla. From there, the construction materials and equipment will be placed on the river vessels and transported along the Padma river to the freight terminal.

It took one and a half years to construct the freight cargo terminal. The size of the port is 150 by 350 meters.

Even during the period of maximum water drop in the Padma river, the water depth at the mooring wall will be at least 3.5 metres allowing to unload the cargo all year round.

Currently, the port is equipped with two cranes with a capacity of 63 tonnes each.  The authorities have planned to install two more Liebherr heavy cranes with a capacity of 308 tonnes each.

Rosatom announced the shipment of the first key elements for the plant - a VVER-1200 reactor and a steam generator – on Aug 21.

The transportation of massive equipment -- the weight of the reactor vessel is 333.6 tonnes while the steam generator is 340 tonnes -- is a complex logistic operation.

From the Atommash site, the reactor vessel and the steam generator were separately transported by special automotive equipment to the pier of the Tsimlyansk water reservoir in Volgodonsk, in order to then sail to Novorossiysk, and from there - via the Black Sea and the Suez Canal - to the construction site - to Bangladesh.

JSC Atomenergomash, a nuclear engineering production of Russia, manufactured the reactor vessel and the steam generator.

Its General Director Andrei Nikipelov said the reactor and the steam generator were to travel another 14 thousand kilometres by sea to be at the construction site of the nuclear power plant in Bangladesh by the end of 2020.