Lithuanian Energy Minister says no compromise with Nukem/GNS on non-certified nuclear casks

"If casks are not certified, nuclear fuel cannot be loaded into them. These are safety requirements. There can be no compromise on that," Energy Minister Arvydas Sekmokas told reporters on Thursday.

Ignalina plant representatives say that 150 casks manufactured by the Nukem-GNS consortium, of which four have already been delivered to Visaginas, a town in eastern Lithuania where the facility is located, do not comply with the project's technical specifications and do not have the necessary certificates.

Lithuania has until 15 July to reach an agreement with the consortium of Germany's Nukem Technologies and GNS on how to solve the issue of suitability of spent nuclear fuel storage casks that are being supplied to the facility. According to media reports, international donors may stop funding Ignalina plant's closure projects if no deal is reached.

However, Sekmokas doubts if the negotiations with Nukem will be completed on schedule.

"What matters are not so much the negotiations and how long they last as the result, which is to complete the B1 and other projects (B2/3/4) in 2013. This is the aim. I do not see any problems if it takes another several weeks to achieve this result. I would see problems if the talks ended without ensuring safety and if the deadlines were not met," he said.

Peter Faross, the director for nuclear energy at the European Commission's Directorate General for Energy, is to come to Vilnius on Friday to be informed about the course of the talks with Nukem/GNS.

Faross has said earlier that in case of the Ignalina plant's failure to agree with the contractors in the interim spent fuel storage facility construction project, known as B1, on how to solve the cask and crane suitability issues and on spent fuel characteristics, further implementation of the plant's closure projects, including the construction of a solid radioactive waste management and storage complex, known as B2/3/4, becomes meaningless.

Ignalina plant and the Lithuanian Energy Ministry agreed at the end of last year to cover a 78-million-euro funding shortfall in the solid radioactive waste management and storage facility project.