‘Bushehr’s launch process on schedule’

The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) says operation to launch the Bushehr nuclear power plant in south of the country is going on as scheduled.

Fereydoun Abbasi noted that the process of putting the facility into operation has been completed as planned, and that the delay in launching the plant was due to “certain safety considerations,”  .

“After loading the fuel [into the reactor], the Russians were also doubtful that a problem might have occurred, and the so-called minor breakdown in the equipment led both sides to decide to remove the fuel from the core of the reactor, recheck it, and put it back into the core [of the reactor],” Abbasi said.

He said the power plant “has now gone nuclear, which means nuclear action and reaction have started at this power station.”

The AEOI chief underlined that Iran has paid due regard to safety considerations at the plant to make sure the facility will work properly in the future.

Iran signed a deal with Russia in 1995 under which the plant was originally scheduled for completion in 1999. However, the project was repeatedly delayed by the Russian side due to intense pressure exerted by the United States and its Western allies. Russia finally completed the construction of the plant last summer.

On October 26, 2010, Iran started loading fuel into the core of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in the initial phase of the launch of the country’s first nuclear reactor.

Nevertheless, the fuel was removed later due to safety considerations before it was reloaded into the core of the reactor.

The facility operates under the full supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.