The 23th annual meeting of the Forum of State Nuclear Safety Authorities of the Countries Operating WWER Type Reactors (VVER Regulators’ Forum) hosted by Federal Environmental, Industrial and Nuclear Supervision Service took place on 5-7 July 2016 in Murmansk, Russia.
The meeting was attended by the delegation of Rostechnadzor headed by Deputy Chairman Alexey Ferapontov and senior officials and experts of the regulatory bodies from Bulgaria, China, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, India, Iran and Slovakia. Belarus, Germany and the IAEA participated as observers.

VVER Forum.jpgRostechnadzor Chairman Alexey Aleshin opened the meeting with a welcoming speech.

The WWER Forum meeting was an opportunity for the participants to share regulatory updates that took place since the 22th meeting of the WWER Forum that took place in September 2016, in Yerevan, Armenia, and to report on most notable safety significant operation events at the WWER NPPs.

The Forum’s working groups – Reactor Physics WG and Strengthening Commissioning Program of New WWER NPPs based on Commissioning/Operating Experience WG led by Russia and India, respectively, - established pursuant to the resolutions made at the 20th meeting of the WWER Regulators’ Forum presented their progress reports. The meeting decided to extend the mandates of the working groups and establish a new working group on ageing management issues to be led by Rostechnadzor.
In line with the program, the participants visited the nuclear-powered icebreaker Lenin, operating nuclear-powered icebreaker Vaygach and the Kola NPP.
The next meeting of the Forum is expected to take place in late April or early May, 2017, in Iran.