Russian nuclear agency issues update on Iran’s Bushehr plant

Staff have not observed attacks near the facility amid reported violations of the US-Iran ceasefire, Rosatom CEO Aleksey Likhachev has said

Iran’s only operating nuclear power plant in Bushehr continues to function normally despite reports of renewed US-Iran military exchanges, Aleksey Likhachev, CEO of the Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, has said.

Russian personnel have not observed any attacks near the plant in recent days, and the situation there remains “generally calm,” Likhachev said in an interview with the Strana Rosatom corporate newspaper published on Friday. Unit 1, currently the plant’s only operational reactor, continues to run at full capacity, he added.

The Russian-built plant, a critical piece of Iran’s energy infrastructure, contains substantial nuclear fuel stockpiles. Likhachev previously warned that any strike on the site could trigger a catastrophe of at least “regional” proportions.

Earlier this week, the US military launched a wave of strikes on Iranian targets near the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran accused Washington of violating a ceasefire agreed last month and retaliated against American warships in the area. The Bushehr plant is located roughly 250 km (155 miles) northwest of the strategic waterway.

Following the start of the US-Israeli attacks on Iran in late February, Rosatom reduced its on-site presence from roughly 700 specialists to just 20 people after strikes and explosions were reported near the plant in March and April. In one incident, a projectile struck near the site’s perimeter, killing a security guard.

The Rosatom chief said the company is prepared to rapidly redeploy its full workforce to Iran once it is convinced there is no renewed risk of military escalation threatening personnel safety.

Read more

Bushehr Unit 1 entered commercial operation in 2013. Units 2 and 3, two additional Russian-designed reactors intended to expand the plant’s electricity-generating capacity, have been under construction since 2016.

Likhachev said work at the site is gradually resuming, with around 2,200 Iranian contractors returning to focus mainly on reinforcement and concrete work at the under-construction Unit 2 reactor.

The Bushehr nuclear power plant produces electricity for Iran’s national power grid. The project was started in the mid-1970s by a West German company but was suspended in the wake of the Islamic Revolution in 1980, to be revived by Rosatom in the 1990s.