Seversk fuel module begins pilot operation

Pilot industrial operation

Rosatom began pilot industrial operation of its fuel fabrication/refabrication module at the Siberian Chemical Plant in Seversk on 25 December 2024. Initial mock-up assemblies contain depleted-uranium nitride. Production of the intended uranium-plutonium fuel awaits regulatory approval for plutonium handling. All production areas have undergone testing. Core technical staffing is planned at 250. Components are made in Glazov, Elektrostal and Novosibirsk.

Four lines cover synthesis, pellets, fuel rods and assembly.
The BREST-300 reactor remains under construction. Initial loading requires more than 200 fuel assemblies.

Reactor construction: 8 June 2021

Rosatom’s corporate newspaper reported the start of construction of the BREST-OD-300 power unit at the Siberian Chemical Plant in June 2021, marked by first concrete. The project combined a lead-cooled fast reactor with fuel fabrication and spent-fuel reprocessing facilities. At that ceremony, project scientific director Evgeny Adamov described a timetable envisaging reactor operation in 2026, establishment of fuel production by 2023 and a start to reprocessing-module construction in 2024. Those dates belonged to the programme announced in 2021, before the fuel module’s December 2024 entry into pilot operation.

Equipment testing: 10 October 2023

A Siberian Chemical Plant statement published in October 2023 described integrated equipment trials for the module. Initial tests during September had produced about 600 briquettes, using aluminium-oxide powder as a substitute material. Specialists examined geometry and density, selecting samples made under different pressing forces for individual checks. The plant worked with Atomtekhenergo to identify a suitable automatic-press operating regime. Testing of the fuel-pellet pressing section was the next planned step. The statement envisaged commissioning the fabrication module during 2024, following the equipment trials and preparation of its production sections.

Operating licence: 12 April 2024

TVEL’s April 2024 announcement reported an operating licence for the module, allowing complete-chain equipment trials using depleted uranium. It recalled a test launch of the synthesis line during a video link with Seversk at Atomexpo on 25 March. Commissioning of installed equipment was continuing. The intended mixed nitride fuel combined depleted uranium, a by-product of enrichment, with plutonium recovered from irradiated fuel. Permission for plutonium handling was still required for that subsequent stage. The announced closed-cycle arrangement envisaged reprocessing spent reactor fuel and returning its materials to fabrication of fresh fuel.