The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine appointed Yurii Antipov a Head of the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management by its Decree No. 471-з dated May 14, 2015.
Previously Mr. Antipov held a position of Acting Director of PJSC Nuclear Fuel Production Plant and headed the Chief Directorate of the MES of Ukraine in Odessa region. He is a liquidator of the Chernobyl NPP accident.
At Chernobyl NPP industrial site routine monitoring of volumetric activity of 137Cs (Cesium-137) in air samples is constantly performed by the stationary control station. The volumetric activity of 137Cs in the sample of ambient air is within the range not exceeding the maximum values for 2014 and the 1st quarter of 2015.
The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine issued a separate permission giving a right to implement activities in accordance with the Programme of FS&P Stage. It means that the Chernobyl NPP completes the shutdown activity and officially proceeds to the decommissioning stage.
The permission was issued pursuant to the State License for Decommissioning No.000040 dated March 22, 2010, obtained by the SSE ChNPP based on the approved Design of Final Shutdown and Preservation (FS&P) Stage. The State Regulatory Body’s recognition of significant progress in planning the ChNPP decommissioning process, successful work on the release of ChNPP Units from spent nuclear fuel and its placement into a special storage facility for safe storage – ISF-1 – is the key and necessary condition to obtain such permission.
On the 12th of November 2013 the fifth block (B-5) of the ChNPP II Generation Ventilation Stack (VS-2) weighting 48 tons was dismantled.
SIP PMU “New Ventilation Stack” Project Manager Vitaliy Shurygin noted that works on VS-2 are unique, because they are carried out under conditions of ionizing radiation and radioactive contamination, as well as in confined spaces in the area with a large number of overhead passes, buildings of different purpose and transportation lines. With the objective to reduce the dismantling time, it is performed in larger units by the crane with lifting capacity of 1,600 tons.