Defueling underway at Ignalina 2

04 February 2011

The process of unloading used fuel from the reactor of unit 2 at Lithuania's shut down Ignalina nuclear power plant began on 1 February 2011, the plant announced in a statement. Workers will remove some 500 fuel assemblies from the reactor and transfer them to on-site storage pools. All the used fuel will subsequently be transferred from the storage pools to the interim used fuel storage facility, which is due to be commissioned later this year. Lithuania agreed to close the two 1500 MWe Soviet-designed RBMK reactors at Ignalina as a condition to its entry into the European Union. Unit 1 was shut at the end of 2004, while Unit 2 shut at the end of 2009.