A1.01/10A - Support to Nuclear Operator of Armenia - Bridging contract

The Armenia NPP is the only nuclear power plant in the region, and consists of two units of the VVER/440/270 model, Soviet type reactor that is a modified version of the VVER/440/230. Unit 1 began its commercial operation in 1976 and Unit 2 in 1980. Both units were shut down shortly after the 1988 Spitak earthquake. Because of the critical situation with power supply in Armenia, the plant was restarted in November 1995 after re-commissioning works were performed from 1993 to 1995. Currently, only Unit 2 is in operation while the Unit 1 was closed down several years ago.

The Armenia NPP has received large international assistance with the objective to improve the plant operational and design safety. Since 1997, the European Union belongs to the major donors with the highest financial contribution to the safety improvement activities that were implemented throughout the TACIS nuclear safety programme, and since 2007, the Instrument for Nuclear Safety Cooperation (INSC).

This project formed part of a co-ordinated programme of On Site Assistance to a number of Nuclear Power Plants located in Russia, Ukraine, Armenia and Kazakhstan funded through the TACIS nuclear safety and INSC Programmes. The On-Site Assistance (OSA) programmes were a corner stone of the TACIS nuclear safety co-operation with these countries. Companies or consortia with experience of NPP operation in the European Union (EU) were contracted by the European Commission (EC) to work on site at nuclear power plants of the Beneficiary country. The aims were to provide the transfer of know-how and soft skills, in particular through soft assistance, which addresses the human element of safety (i.e. safety culture, quality assurance, maintenance, management and training, etc), and to upgrade the safety of the plant through the supply of equipment ('hard' assistance). In many cases the soft assistance was directly related to the equipment being provided through the hardware supply projects.

At Armenia Nuclear Power Plant, the On Site Assistance activity had been active since 1997, the first OSA project being programmed in the TACIS 1996 Nuclear Safety Programme. In the period since then, a number of equipment supply projects had been undertaken and several follow-up OSA projects (1997, 2000, 2004, 2006) had been implemented. The last of these (project A1.01/06, see contract 126845) was approaching its end in September 2010.

The objective of the present contract was to ensure continuity of the presence of the OSA contractor on-site at Armenia NPP for a period of four months pending the completion of the open tender procedure launched by the European Commission to select a new contractor to be in charge of the on-site assistance at ANPP for a period of 3 years from January 2011 onwards. The objective was consequently to extend the services provided under contract 126845 for a further 4 months.

The Contractor was expected to ensure the general contract management and the follow-up of the TACIS/INSC equipment supply projects that were at various stages of tendering or of implementation.

The soft assistance activities were focussed on helping the NPP staff to prepare for a forthcoming OSART mission in 2011.

The contract was signed on 27 September 2010 for a period of four months.

The contractor performed the activities in accordance with the contract requirements.

Following the open tender procedure for the follow-on OSA contract, the new contract was placed on 28 February 2011 (see contract 245856).