An International Insurance Survey at Leningrad NPP

An International prescheduled Insurance Survey of the insured activities of the Units and equipment at Leningrad site, operating RBMK-1000 reactors, was held on 23-25 September, 2014. The inspection was carried out under the supervision of Sergey Babenko – Technical director of RANI. The Committee included inspectors of the British, Swiss and Japanese Nuclear Insurance Pools, the Russian Nuclear Insurance Pool (RANI), and observers of OJSC “Rosenergoatom”. The Survey was mainly aimed at assessing the insurance risk of Leningrad NPP in order to arrange nuclear third party insurance cover in foreign Nuclear Insurance Pools of the International Pooling System, and became the third one arranged by RANI. The first Survey at Leningrad NPP took place in 2009, and the second one in 2011. The experts focused on nuclear risks of NPP, assessed operating safety level, fire safety level and equipment failure risks.

The Survey was well organized by NPP. The head of the site as well as technical specialists of NPP provided all necessary support during the Inspection. With respect to the long operating life of NPP, the experts noted the high operating and technical, financial and administrative support level of Leningrad site.

The staff of NPP mostly implemented recommendations provided ​​during previous inspections. A lot of work has been done by NPP on the modernization process, connected with the extension of the operating life of the units and on restoring the graphite stack’s characteristics of the reactors of the first-stage units.

The inspectors visited the reactor compartment, turbine hall, the main control room, the emergency control room, safety systems facilities, ISFSI and outdoor switch-gear, etc.

The experts outlined some potential weak points in the operation process at NPP’s facilities, which may possibly affect insurance risks.

All the observations made during the Inspection as well as the documents provided by NPP require detailed analysis to work out proper recommendations for further improvement of NPP’s activities and are to be discussed with underwriters.