Rooppur 2: Another milestone achieved in construction of Bangladesh's nuclear power plant

Another major milestone has been reached in the construction of the second unit of a nuclear power plant in Bangladesh. The pouring of concrete for the outer containment was completed after 122 days of work.

A total of 75 workers took part in this phase of construction, 60 of them from Bangladesh. The outer containment dome, with a diameter of 46 metres and a thickness of 50 centimetres, required 1233 cubic metres of concrete. Russian company Rosatom, the plant's main contractor, said it had managed to complete the construction work five days ahead of schedule.

The outer containment, a robust reinforced-concrete structure, plays a key role in protecting the plant from external threats such as earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes. This milestone follows the installation and concreting of the inner containment, which took place in June 2022 and May 2023, respectively.

Alexey Deriy, vice-president and project director for the construction of the Rooppur nuclear power plant, stressed the importance of completing the concrete work for the next stages of the project. It is now possible to begin installing the deflector for the passive reactor-core heat removal system, a key safety feature of the plant.

The story of the Rooppur nuclear power plant

The history of the Rooppur project dates back to February 2011, when Rosatom signed an agreement to build two reactors with the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission. The total project value is USD 12.65 billion (approx. CZK 288.3 billion).

The plant, located 160 kilometres from Dhaka, will have two Russian VVER-1200 reactors. The planned operating life of these reactors is 60 years, with the possibility of extending it by a further 20 years. Construction of the first unit began in November 2017, and its commissioning is planned for 2024, while construction of the second unit began in July 2018.

Bangladesh reached a major construction milestone in 2023, when the concreting of the outer containment of the first unit under construction was completed. In October of the same year, the country officially joined the international “club” of nuclear nations when nuclear fuel was loaded into the core of the Rooppur 1 reactor for the first time.