The first batch of domestic key nuclear fuel storage and transportation equipment projects started

Recently, on the spot of the representative of the National Nuclear Safety Administration, China’s first batch of 14-foot new fuel transportation container development projects such as CAP1000/CAP1400, which are the key domestic nuclear fuel storage and transportation equipment, were in CIMC Enric Holdings Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as CIMC). Enrico) officially started. The equipment was jointly developed by its Nantong manufacturing base, Nantong CIMC Tank Storage Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Nantong Tank Container Company), and Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research & Design Institute and China Nuclear Power Baotou Nuclear Fuel Components Co., Ltd. It is a new fuel technology (including shipping container) transferee for AP1000 nuclear power technology.

Nuclear power equipment currently includes two major parts - nuclear power station equipment and nuclear fuel storage and transportation equipment. The 14-foot new fuel transportation container such as CAP1000/CAP1400 belongs to nuclear fuel transportation equipment and is currently monopolized by US companies. Industry experts pointed out that this project is one of the important topics for the localization of the AP1000 project. Once it is successfully developed, it will break the monopoly of foreign companies in this field, have the conditions to enter the international market, and fully prepare for the export of the CAP1400 nuclear power technology. By then, CIMC Enric will become the only company in China that is qualified to provide transportation containers for AP1000 nuclear power station new fuel.

According to Liu Chunfeng, deputy general manager of CIMC Enric and general manager of Nantong Tank Co., Ltd., since the State Energy Administration issued the “2011-2020 Medium- and Long-Term Nuclear Power Development Plan” in 2008, the company has started to conduct nuclear power business as an emerging business. Long-term planning, and in 2011 to obtain the national "civil nuclear safety equipment manufacturing permit", with nuclear second- and third-tier equipment manufacturing qualifications and capabilities. In the first time after the certification, it took the first batch of nuclear-equipment-exports to Pakistan's Chashma Nuclear Power Station C3 and C4 units.

Since 2010, through the introduction of digestion and independent innovation, the company has researched and developed nuclear fuel transport containers such as 30B and 48Y that meet the IAEA standards, and domestic nuclear fuel transport containers have been exported for the first time in large quantities. At the same time, the company successively provided nuclear power products such as MV Series, MT Series, and MS Series to the three nuclear power plants in Zhejiang Sanmen and Shandong Haiyang, which are the general packages of China National Nuclear Engineering Co., Ltd., and led CIMC TANK to formally enter the business of nuclear power.

In September last year, the first nuclear equipment independently designed by Westinghouse, purchased by China National Nuclear Engineering Co., Ltd. and CIMC Enric, and the first set of important equipment of AP1000, the MS23 air storage package for Sanmen Nuclear Power Unit 1 Successfully passed the factory inspection and sent to the Sanmen nuclear power plant, marking CIMC Enricco's CIMC TANK has the capability to provide nuclear II and III equipment for the world's first AP1000 nuclear power unit.

In 2014, CIMC Enric has successively obtained orders for more than 90 orders for nuclear power plants with over 50 million contracts and more than 1,000 orders for 48Y and 30B nuclear fuel transportation containers with a value exceeding 60 million. The company’s nuclear fuel shipping containers, such as uranium hexafluoride (UF6) transport containers, in the nuclear fuel business, have accounted for 30% of the global market share.

In April this year, the first session of the National Energy Commission proposed to speed up the development of the nuclear power industry and launch new nuclear power projects on the eastern coast in due course. On July 17th, the National Bureau of Energy launched 164 industry standards involving as many as 81 nuclear power projects. It was considered by the industry as a new round of opportunities for expansion of the nuclear power equipment market. In the situation where the AP1000 nuclear power plant has become the main model for decades to come, the market prospect of new fuel transportation containers is very clear.

At present, CIMC Enric is accelerating the technological development of these new fuel transportation containers. The new fuel assembly R&D project has been approved by the National Nuclear Safety Administration and officially launched. The project is expected to be successfully developed and put into production in mid-2015.