Russia’s nuclear power company finds business is good – in Iran and elsewhere

MOSCOW: The Russian nuclear power company, Atomstroyexport, has been roundly criticized for helping Iran build its nuclear program. But that project, along with the company’s mouthful of a name, is not hurting its business prospects.

A former branch of the Soviet atomic energy ministry, Atomstroyexport has been the Kremlin’s main instrument to meet rising global demand for nuclear power, which these days comes mainly from developing countries.


“We’re talking about a nuclear renaissance,” Sergei Shmatko, the chief executive of Atomstroyexport, said at the company’s headquarters in Moscow. “We are certain we have a market.”

Atomstroyexport is building seven nuclear reactors – in Iran, China, Bulgaria and India – a higher number of reactors, it claims, than any competitor, in particular Westinghouse and General Electric of the United States, Siemens of Germany or Areva of France.

IHT