Nuclear power plants will dock to Sakhalin

Sergey Kondratiev, Principal Director on Economic Studies at the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to the Kommersant newspaper on the low-power nuclear power plant construction in the Far East.

For the power supply of the Kirinsky and Yuzhno-Kirinsky gas condensate fields of Gazprom (MOEX: GAZP), Rosatom can build floating power units using the RITM-200S nuclear power plants with a capacity of 116 MW. The demand for the field capacity is estimated at 45 MW by 2042, the rest of the production will go to Sakhalin consumers.

If we proceed from the gas production of 20-25 billion cubic meters (Kirinskoye plus Yuzhno-Kirinskoye), then 45 MW is a fairly high estimate, Sergey Kondratiev notes. For example, NOVATEK-Yurkharovneftegaz, with a comparable production level (24-26 billion cubic meters per year), consumes 12-13 MW at the maximum, even taking into account adjustments for different production conditions.

According to expert estimates, the cost of construction of one floating power units may amount to 45-50 billion rubles, that is, the cost of production will be $85-88 per MWh. Traditional gas thermal power plants, he clarifies, look much better from an economic point of view, and probably the choice in favor of nuclear power plants is due to the unavailability of key equipment — gas turbines.

"But I am not sure that this choice is optimal in the long term," Sergey Kondratiev notes. Due to the requirements of redundancy (stopping reactors for fuel overload), he explains, it is necessary to build additional power units and build a distribution scheme to the regional power grid. Now the energy district of the Kirinsky gas Station is isolated.