Iran
Says Bushehr Nuclear
Plant to
Go Online in October
 |
RIA Novosti Photos |
TEHRAN (RIA
Novosti) — The Bushehr nuclear power plant being built
in Iran will be launched in October, a high-ranking
Iranian nuclear official said.
Russia is building the $1-billion facility, Iran’s first nuclear
power plant, in the south of the country in accordance with a
1995 contract, and under UN supervision as Iran is under international
scrutiny over its compliance with the nuclear non-proliferation
regime.
"The work for the physical launch of the Bushehr NPP will
begin at the end of Mehr [a month under the Iranian calendar
that lasts from September 22 to October 21]," Ahmad Fayazbakhsh,
deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said.
The Bushehr project was originally scheduled for commissioning
at the end of 2006, but the date has been postponed several times.
The project was originally started by Germany’s Siemens in 1975,
but work stopped following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Russia delivered its final and eighth fuel shipment to Bushehr
on January 28, supplying a total of 82 metric tons of low-enriched
uranium to the light-water nuclear power plant.