Hungary to start talks on purchasing nuclear fuel from the US

Hungary wants to buy nuclear fuel from the United States in order to diversify its supply sources. This was announced by Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó during his visit to Washington in an interview with the state television channel M1.

“In addition to existing Russian supply relationships, we are now beginning consultations on purchasing nuclear fuel from the United States in order to safely cover our increased nuclear capacity,” Szijjártó said. He added that Hungary would continue to purchase fuel from Russia as the country expands its Paks nuclear power plant.

Szijjártó was scheduled to meet with representatives of the US Department of Energy and Westinghouse on Wednesday to discuss cooperation. However, he did not provide any details on when Hungary could purchase fuel from the US or in what quantities.

The Paks power plant operates four Russian VVER-440 reactors with a capacity of around 2,000 megawatts. Their service life is to be extended by 20 years while Rosatom builds two new VVER reactors there.
From 2027, Hungary also plans to purchase nuclear fuel from the French company Framatome.

(reuters, lud)