Nuclear Power, Chinese Investors and Telecoms for High North

The Russian federal government has allocated funds for New Atomic Energy, a recently announced program to be implemented by Rosatom, the national nuclear monopoly. Under this program, Rosatom intends to design a series of low-capacity nuclear power plants to be deployed in the Russian High North. The idea behind this initiative is to develop a feasible solution for providing electricity to remote off-grid communities in the Arctic. Of 80 billion rubles (USD 1.1 billion) allocated for the program, 24 billion will be covered by the federal budget and 46 billion by the Russian National Wealth Fund.

The Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic and the Far East and Arctic Development Corporation have hosted a round table on major investment projects to be implemented in the country’s energy and chemistry sectors. As part of the event, Russian companies have presented their project portfolios to potential investors from mainland China, including a project to build a methanol plant in the Nenets Autonomous District.

MTS, a major Russian-based telephone company, continues its push northward. According to the company’s representatives, since the beginning of this year, MTS has expanded its coverage to six remote oil and gas drilling operations in the Arctic and provided access to telecom services for some 20,000 people employed in the High North.