Alexander Rumyantsev, director of the Russian Federal Agency for Atomic Energy, is interviewed after meeting with the Iranian Finance and Economy Minister Safdar Hosseini
Photo: Ilya Pitalev
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Aleksandr Rumiantsev Decides to Make Money on the Nuclear Submarines
// Of NATO member countries
International cooperation
Aleksandr Rumiantsev, the head of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom), said yesterday in an interview with the RIA Novosti news agency that he was considering the possibility of developing a new line of activity – dismantling foreign nuclear submarines. If the project is supported by the G8, Rosatom will be assured of financing for many years to come. But these plans are unlikely to be realized, because NATO members will not want to give Russian specialists access to the secrets of their nuclear submarines.
Four companies under the jurisdiction of the Federal Industry Agency are involved in dismantling nuclear submarines in Russia – the Nerpa Shipyards (Murmansk), the Zvezdochka and Sevmash shipyards (both in Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk Region), and the Zvezda Shipyards (Fokino, Primorye Territory). In addition, four other shipyards under the Navy's jurisdiction are also capable of dismantling submarines – the 10th and 35th (Murmansk), the 30th (Chazhma Bay, Primorye Territory), and the 49th (Vilyuchinsk, Kamchatka Region). However, at present, the naval shipyards are involved mainly in salvaging diesel submarines and have almost nothing to do with nuclear vessels.
“For foreign partners [the United States and Great Britain], salvaging their nuclear submarines using existing facilities in Russia would allow them to save substantial amounts of money on the construction of similar infrastructure in their own countries,” Rumiantsev said, although he stressed that there was no specific project at the moment, but only a political sense.
Specialists estimate that dismantling nuclear submarines in Russia would cost NATO members two to three times less that decommissioning them in their own countries. Especially since the infrastructure of the Russian companies was built mainly on money received as aid from the G8 countries. According to Rumiantsev, Russia currently receives $100 million each from foreign partners for dismantling its own submarines. “Nearly 120 submarines are now being dismantled, and there are about 80 left. The submarines are being dismantled at the rate of about 15 per year. We will be finished in five or six years,” the agency reports, quoting Rumiantsev.
Rumiantsev's intentions to provide Russian shipyards with dismantlement orders after 2010, when the facilities constructed with Western aid start becoming idle, are also understandable. However, in reality, the circle of potential customers is not that large. The United States has its own technologies and facilities for dismantling submarines; these are also used by Great Britain, which has a small fleet of nuclear submarines. France dismantles its own submarines itself. That leaves only China, but, in the near future, only its first Han class submarines (design 091), which were armed in 1974, are likely to need dismantling in the near future. The remaining Chinese nuclear submarines were commissioned between 1987 and 1998, and there is no prospect of dismantling them in the short term.
One should also not forget the matter of classified defense technology. Rumiantsev believes that all confidential components can be removed from the vessels, leaving only the common, traditional mechanisms. The problem of spent nuclear fuel could be solved in the same way. First, spent nuclear fuel from foreign submarines could be unloaded in countries owning their own submarines. According to a process developed in Russia, the spent fuel is first unloaded from the submarines, the nuclear reactor is cut out, and then the reactor compartments are cut out and dismantled separately.
However, as a source in Russia's Ministry of Defense reminded Kommersant, even after the instrumentation and weapons are stripped from the submarines and the spent nuclear fuel is unloaded, Russian specialists will be able to study the nuclear reactor setup and obtain samples of the metal used in the submarine's hull, which also falls under the category of top secret information. Finally, one very important secret is the construction of the propellers, which directly affects on the main characteristics of submarines – noise reduction. There are unlikely to be any countries in the world prepared to give the Russians the chance to obtain these secrets easily and, what is more, use their own money to pay for this.
Alena Kornysheva, Ivan Safronov
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 18, 2005
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