The Bushehr project is on top of our 2005 list, head of the Federal Nuclear Energy Agency Alexander Rumyantsev told journalists on Friday.
Russian specialists have been building Bushehr's first unit (rated capacity 1,000 megawatts) since the mid-1990s. Its physical start-up is scheduled for 2005 and putting into operation for 2006.
Among the other promising projects in 2005 Rumyantsev cited further building of nuclear power units in Iran, start-up of Tianwan units in China on February 17, as well the erection of a unit of the Kudankulam nuclear power facility in India.
Summing up Russia's nuclear power performance this year, Alexander Rumyantsev said that the production of electricity by the ten facilities is to exceed 143 billion kilowatt/hours.
"This year we've laid the groundwork for overfulfilling the 2005 plan of electricity generation," Rumyantsev said.
The volume of products and services exported by the Russian nuclear industry in 2004 is almost 0.5 billion-dollars' worth more than in 2003 and exceeds 3.5 billion dollars.
The Bushehr nuclear power plant, estimated at 800 million dollars, has from the very beginning been causing Washington's discontent (however, when the Germans began to build it under the Shah regime, Washington did not object: Iran under the Shah was almost its only ally in the region): America fears that wasted nuclear fuel may go create nuclear weapons.
Permanently under pressure from the United States, Russia is taking the side of the Islamic Republic.
Iran goes on maintaining that its nuclear program is only peaceful and intended to meet electricity shortages. The International Atomic Energy Agency has for over two years been studying the Iranian nuclear developments but failed to discover a proof that Tehran seeks getting hold of nuclear weapons.
