Atommash is Russia's largest manufacturer of equipment for the nuclear power industry. The enterprise is located in the city of Volgodonsk, Rostov region. Before the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Atommash produced more than 100 units of high-tech equipment for nuclear power plants, including 14 VVER-1000 reactors, the most common nuclear reactors in their series.
At different times, Atommash products were supplied to many nuclear power plants, including Rostov, Balakovo, Krymskaya and others.
1.
Since 2012, Atommash has been a branch of the AEM-Technologies engineering company, which is part of the Atomenergomash machine-building division of Rosatom. It is the only company in Russia that produces a complete set of NPP reactor hall equipment.
2. The 15,000-ton double-acting plate punching press can stamp bottoms from flat billets up to 45 cm thick.
3. Manufacture of vessel equipment - reactor vessels are assembled and welded here.
4. In addition to equipment for the nuclear industry, Atommash produces equipment for the gas and petrochemical industries. These are mainly large pressure vessels, column equipment, pipeline fittings.
5. A cylindrical shell made of two-layer metal is an integral part of an oil refinery column for one of the large oil refineries. The diameter of the ring is about 10 meters.
6. Installation for automatic welding and surfacing under a layer of flux of internal circumferential and longitudinal welds on shells of various diameters.
7. In one pass, this installation can provide surfacing of the cladding layer up to 8 mm.
9. The electric arc burns under a layer of flux between the end of the welding wire and the metal to be welded.
10. Molten electrode and base metals are mixed in the weld pool. Crystallizing, they form a weld.
11. Assembly and welding area. Preparations are underway for the control operations of the component part of the bottom for the oil refining column. The diameter of the bottom is about 8 meters.
12. Manual arc welding of the fastening elements on the workpiece of the bottom of the oil refining column.
14. Thick-walled (up to 11 cm) shells with internal anti-corrosion surfacing are integral parts of the oil refinery reactor vessel.
15.
16. For welding thick-walled workpieces, the weld zone is heated using electric heaters.
In this case, the temperature of the workpieces during welding should not be lower than 150°C.
17. Welding manipulator. Designed for welding and surfacing of circumferential seams of spherical and elliptical bottoms.
18. Welding of the annular seam of the components of the bottom of the refinery reactor is in progress.
19. The duration of the continuous welding process depends on the thickness of the parts to be welded and can last more than 10 days.
20. Manual surfacing of the inner surface of the branch pipe on the half-shell of a nuclear reactor.
21. After welding operations, all welds are cleaned with grinding machines for subsequent control operations: color and ultrasonic flaw detection.
24. The unique machining center is capable of performing not only turning operations on heavy and large-sized workpieces, but also boring surfaces. The weight of this billet exceeds 169 tons.
27. The 12 meter long steam generator body is being machined through holes on an INNSE horizontal boring machine.
28. This machining center can machine holes along the entire length of the product from one installation.
29. Relocation of the half-vessel of the reactor weighing 170 tons to the next technological operation.
30. Turning the edge of the bottom of the steam generator for welding.
31. Atommash has a large fleet of universal lathes capable of processing workpieces up to 5 meters in diameter.
32. Span manufacturing steam generators for nuclear power plants.
33. Heat exchange tubes inside the steam generator body.
34. Saturation of the steam generator with internal elements and devices.
35. About 11 thousand heat exchange tubes - coils must be installed and welded to the collectors inside the steam generator housing.
36. Welders.
40. An assembly of two shells with a diameter of more than 10 meters with stiffening elements. This unit will soon become an integral part of a huge oil refining column.
41. The area of the enterprise is 170 hectares. The length of the production building is 800 meters. Therefore, employees (mainly line personnel) move on service bikes along special bike paths.
42. Creating an edge for welding on the inner hole using machining - boring.
43. The operation is performed on the machine according to a given program.
44. Only machines with program control allow you to accurately, with the given parameters, make repeating holes in thick-walled shells.
45. A unique process of expanding heat exchange tubes inside the steam generator header. Specialists need to expand, and then perform automatic welding and control of 11,000 heat exchange pipes in the header.
46. To detect defects in thick-walled products with a wall thickness of up to 45 cm, installations for X-ray inspection are used. The photo shows the process of preparing an underground X-ray camera, which will soon be placed a product for control.
47. Hydraulic tests of a nuclear reactor are carried out in a specially equipped underground stand.
48. The stand provides pressure over 250 atmospheres and heats specially prepared water up to 80°С. It is under such conditions that reactors for nuclear power plants are tested.
49. Overhead cranes of various carrying capacity are used to move the manufactured equipment inside the case. Specifically, these cranes are at shipping positions. Able to work in pairs and lift products weighing up to 1200 tons.
50. Slinger.
51. Assembly and welding site for the manufacture of reactor internals.
52. The process of testing welded joints using color flaw detection technology.
53. In October 2015, Atommash manufactured and shipped the first VVER-1200 reactor vessel for unit No. 1 of the Belarusian NPP. In December 2015, the enterprise manufactured a set of steam generators MKP-1000 for unit No. 4 of the Rostov NPP. Today, work is underway on a set of equipment for the Belarusian NPP block No. 2.
Many thanks to the public relations department of AEM Technologies JSC for organizing the photo shoot!
For all questions regarding the use of photographs, write to e-mail.
STORY
Atommash was built for the purpose of complete production of equipment for nuclear power plants. The design capacity of the plant, upon completion of the construction of all production facilities, could allow the production of up to eight sets of pressurized water reactors with a capacity of 1000 MW. (VVER-1000) During the years of rapid development of the nuclear industry in the Soviet Union, in the 80s, Atommash reached the level of manufacturing four sets of NPP equipment per year. During this time, production has produced more than 100 units of large NPP equipment. These are reactors, steam generators, transport and technological equipment, pressure compensators, refueling machines, and biological protection equipment.
November 26, 1969- Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the construction of the Volgodonsk Heavy Machine Building Plant (VZTM).
May 22, 1970- By Order No. 190 of the USSR Ministry of Heavy Power and Transport Engineering, a commission was organized to select sites for the construction of Mintyazhmash plants near the city of Volgodonsk.
April 26, 1971 in Vasily Aleksandrovich Lyapustin was appointed Director of the Main Directorate of Nuclear Engineering and Boiler Building at the complex of nuclear engineering plants under construction in Volgodonsk.
1972 The technical design of the plant has been developed. It was reviewed by the expertise of the Mintyazhmash and the Glavgosexpertiza of the Gosstroy of the USSR and approved in 1974.
1974 Start of construction of the plant. The construction was declared All-Union Komsomol. Simultaneously with the plant, the city was built. All work was financed under the title of Atommash.
December 18, 1976 the first stage of building No. 3 is put into operation. On this occasion, a rally was held, and the launch of building No. 3 was timed to coincide with the birthday of L.I. Brezhnev).
1978– Completion of the construction of the first stage of the production building No. 1.
1979- Start of work on the manufacture of the reactor vessel in the 1st production building.
October 1, 1981 the body of the first Donskoy reactor was sent to the South Ukrainian Nuclear Power Plant.
1991– The plant manufactured 13 reactor vessels and more than a hundred units of vessel equipment of the reactor plant. Atommash also acted as a supplier of transport and technological equipment and reloading machines for nuclear power plants. The production of large equipment for petrochemical and metallurgy was carried out.
1997– Entry into the production structure of the Energomash group. Start of work on the project for the manufacture of the main equipment for the construction of gas turbine CHPPs.
2001 - 2012– Manufacture of gas turbine equipment for small gas turbine CHP plants. Production of large oil and gas equipment for oil refining and petrochemical industries.
year 2012– The plant became a production branch of CJSC Engineering Company AEM-Technologies, St. Petersburg. The plant is part of the machine-building division of OJSC Atomenergomash of the state corporation Rosatom and cooperates with partner enterprises in the nuclear industry. In the production of the branch, a program is being implemented to restore the production of equipment for nuclear power plants. Such key equipment is being manufactured as a reactor plant, steam generators, a melt trap, MCP housings, transport and technological equipment for four nuclear power plants: Baltic, Novovoronezh, Leningrad, Rostov and Belorusskaya.
year 2013- In August, transport and technological equipment was delivered - a complete transport lock for Novovoronezh NPP-2. In October, the Branch supplied a melt containment device for the first nuclear power plant under construction in Belarus. An order has been opened and technological preparations are underway for the manufacture of a reactor for the Belarusian NPP.
IN 2013 year in enterprise developmentmore than 500 million rubles have been invested. An OKUMA computerized processing center, welding heads for the modernization of automatic welding installations, equipment for performing single-layer electroslag surfacing, transport for technological transportation, and an eddy current control unit for steam generators were purchased.
In 2014 - 2015 the company continues to implement the modernization program. As part of the program, the main machining centers, portal carousel machines and other machining equipment were re-equipped with modern CNC systems and high-performance cutting tools. Welding stands, portals and manipulators are equipped with the latest generation of welding heads.
Modernization of the only hydraulic sheet forging press in Russia with a capacity of 15,000 tons was carried out, which allows stamping bottoms with a diameter of up to 5000 mm, a sheet thickness of up to 3800 mm.
Modernized equipment for heat treatment, represented by chamber-type gas furnaces, including shaft furnaces, and a hardening complex, provides hardening and tempering of large parts.
To resume the full cycle of manufacturing steam generators, a pipe bending complex was put into operation, which makes it possible to manufacture sets of pipes in a fully automatic mode, including 11 thousand heat exchange coils of more than one hundred and twenty different configurations.
Also in production, a site for the final assembly of steam generators was built. Here, on special stands, heat exchange coils are welded to the coolant collector. Welding is carried out in a fully automatic mode using specialized welding equipment. At the finishing assembly site, two steam generators can be assembled simultaneously.
October 2015 and the manufacturing of the reactor vessel for the first power unit of the Belarusian NPP was completed. This is the first reactor pressure vessel manufactured at the production site of the Atommash plant after an almost 30-year break, and the first one produced in the structure of the Rosatom State Corporation.
December 2015, also after a long break, the production of a set of steam generators for the Rostov nuclear power plant was completed.
In March 1975, the construction of Atommash was declared the All-Union shock Komsomol construction site. On August 30, 1975, the first pile of production building No. 1 was laid. In March 1976, the VZTM under construction was renamed the Volgodonsk Plant of Nuclear Power Engineering - Atommash. In December 1976, the first stage of auxiliary production building No. 3 was put into operation.
The production of power equipment at Atommash was launched already in 1977. The official commissioning of the first stage of the plant took place in December 1978. The capacity of the enterprise for the production of power equipment by 1978 reached 3 (three) million kilowatts per year, and by 1979 - 4 (four) million. In 1981, Atommash produced the first reactor for the second power unit of the South Ukrainian NPP.
To ensure the production and economic activities of Atommash, in accordance with the state program of socio-economic development, a new part of the city with all the infrastructure (New City) was built in Volgodonsk. Before the construction of Atommash, the population of Volgodonsk was 35 thousand people, and in 1981 there were already 135 thousand inhabitants. According to the general plan, the city was built: modern quarters of multi-storey residential buildings, nurseries, kindergartens, schools, medical institutions, trade and public catering enterprises, consumer services, sports and recreation centers, cultural institutions, public and administrative buildings, and much more. other. The infrastructure of Atommash, necessary for the socio-economic development of any industrial enterprise, could be the envy of many cities and regions of the country. An important fact is that, located on the banks of the Tsimlyansk reservoir and the Don River, Volgodonsk has a significant geographical advantage over industrial cities and regions not only in the South of Russia.
In archival materials about the history of the flagship of the domestic nuclear engineering "Atommash" (Textbook "History of the Don Territory", section "Builders of Communism", 1983), in particular, it says:
“During the years of the tenth five-year plan, a gigantic construction of the unique Atommash plant, which will produce thermal reactors for nuclear power plants of the Soviet Union and fraternal socialist countries, began on the Don land. On an autumn morning in 1974, in the steppe near Volgodonsk, the first pegs were driven into the ground, enclosing 600 hectares of the area of the future giant. ... On the eve of the opening of the XXVI Party Congress, in February 1981, the vessel of the first Donskoy reactor was manufactured. A satellite town will grow up next to the plant on the bank of the Don. In July 1976, he accepted the first new settlers, and in total, 750 thousand builders, workers, engineers and their families will live in his comfortable multi-storey buildings.
Production specialization
The design capacity of Atommash is 8 sets of reactor equipment per year. In 1989, the enterprise produced 4 complete sets of equipment. Atommash was created as a specialized enterprise for the production of products for nuclear power. The Atommash Production Association was a key enterprise in the system of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building of the USSR and produced a wide range of high-tech equipment for nuclear power and industry. This enterprise produced nuclear reactors of the VVER type, including CPS, steam generators, superheater separators and other equipment. At Atommash, the AST-500 reactor vessel was manufactured for the first nuclear heat supply station - the Gorky AST, as well as the components of the Tokamak T-15 thermonuclear plant with a superconducting solenoid that gives a field with an induction of 3.6 T. In total, the plant's products numbered 125 items products for nuclear power plants. Atommash's products at various times were supplied to many nuclear power plants, including Rostov, Balakovo, Krymskaya, and others. Before the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Atommash produced more than 100 pieces of high-tech equipment for nuclear power plants, including 14 VVER-1000 reactors, of which 5 remained at the enterprise. During the bankruptcy period of Atommash OJSC, these products were transferred to EMK-Atommash OJSC at a sharply reduced residual book value (for a pittance). Subsequently, part of the products in the form of components (parts) became the subject of disputes and proceedings in the Arbitration Court of the Rostov Region on claims between OJSC EMK-Atommash and the State Enterprise National Nuclear Energy Generating Company Energoatom in Case No. A53-21263/2005, but already in multiply increased prices, and then in the Court of Cassation of the Federal Arbitration Court of the North Caucasus District in Case No. A53-4049 / 2006 with the issuance of a Resolution dated 03/23/2010.
The production area of Atommash amounted to about 6 million square meters. meters. Most of the equipment at Atommash was imported and purchased from such leading Western companies as Mannesmann AG, ESAB, Italimpianti, Varian and other enterprises. The quality of equipment for the nuclear power industry, produced by PA (OJSC) Atommash, was confirmed by the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) certificate.
Postage stamp of the USSR in 1981 - ATOMMASH
In addition to complete equipment for nuclear power plants in its main profile, Atommash OJSC was able to produce over 1000 types of modern competitive industrial products and consumer goods, including: equipment for energy (including thermal, hydro and wind power plants), metallurgical, mining, oil and gas production and processing complexes, compact mini-refineries with a capacity of 50 to 500 thousand tons per year, structures for sea and river cargo and oil loading ports, containers for the transportation and disposal of radioactive waste, railway tanks for the transport of liquid gas, installations for seawater desalination, bioenergy plants for processing animal waste into fertilizer with the production of heat and electricity, equipment for the rocket and space industry and much more. Atommash could manufacture equipment and products with a wall thickness of 1 to 400 mm, a diameter of up to 22 m, a length of up to 80 m, and a weight of up to 1,000 tons. Atommash has exported its products to various countries of the world, including Germany, USA, France, China, Japan, India, Singapore, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Cuba, Indonesia, etc.
The manufacture of the main equipment at Atommash was carried out in a closed cycle, starting from the receipt of the billet and ending with the shipment of the finished product. A special berth equipped with two powerful cranes with a total lifting capacity of 1,200 tons was built at the Tsimlyansk reservoir for the shipment and transportation of heavy and oversized cargo.
Until 1990, the annual production output at the Atommash Production Association was about 130 thousand tons; the number of employees at the enterprise is 21 thousand people.
Privatization and corporatization
The logo of the software (later JSC) Atommash in the 80-90s
Atommash badge (70-80s)
Badge "Atommash - Volgodonsk" (70-80s)
Medal in honor of the launch of the first stage of Atommash (1978)
By order of the Government Russian Federation dated August 21, 1992, No. 1542-r, the state enterprise of nuclear power engineering Atommash Production Association was transformed into Atommash Open Joint-Stock Company. Having transformed Atommash into a joint-stock company, the state retained its special status of an enterprise of federal significance, included in the list of strategic facilities not subject to bankruptcy.
The legal status of the Atommash Production Association after its corporatization is Atommash Open Joint Stock Company, abbreviated name - Atommash OJSC (Volgodonsk, Rostov Region). As of 1997, Atommash OJSC was joint stock company. At the same time, a share of 30% of the shares plus one “golden share" continued to remain assigned to the state and controlled by the Federal Property Management Agency. The remaining 70% of the shares belonged to private individuals and companies, of which the largest shareholder (with a share of 28.5% of shares) was the Moscow enterprise CJSC YACONTO Concern.
Bankruptcy 1995–1999
According to the Orders of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Government of the Russian Federation Chernomyrdin V.S. dated August 30, 1993 No. 1546-r, dated March 25, 1994 No. 378-r and September 8, 1994 No. 1437-r targeted loans at low interest rates. However, in 1994 these loans were directed to commercial structures, and only then were they provided to Atommash in the form of loans, but at an exorbitantly high interest rate. So, from July to August 1994, commercial loans were imposed on Atommash, issued through the VF CB Doninvest at 216% per annum. Thus, the bankruptcy organizers achieved rapid growth debts of Atommash OJSC to intermediary creditors. Despite the fact that the amount of Atommash's debt was only a small part of the book value of its assets, and the book value of Atommash, in turn, was ten times less than its market price, it was this debt that served as a pretext for the Territorial Agency of the Federal Administration insolvency (bankruptcy) (FUDN) in the Rostov region to initiate the bankruptcy of an industrial giant, which undermined the economic security of the country.
In a letter from the Minister of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy Mikhailov V.N. dated 05/21/1996 No. D-M-27 / 4-01 To the Chairman of the Committee on Industry, Construction, Transport and Energy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Gusev V.K. it is reported that on the basis of the Order of the Government of the Russian Federation No. P-593ns dated 04.10.1995, the Ministry of Atomic Energy of Russia sent to the State Property Committee of Russia, to the FUDN under the State Property Committee of Russia and the Head of the Administration of the Rostov Region a reasonable proposal to convert the "golden share" into an ordinary one and fix the unrealized block of shares Atommash OJSC for a period of up to three years in state ownership. But this proposal did not receive support in the above instances, as a result of which the Ministry of Atomic Energy of Russia lost the opportunity to influence decision-making on the activities of Atommash OJSC. Thus, having decided to introduce external management at the enterprise and not supporting the proposal of the Ministry of Atomic Energy of Russia in the interests of the state, the State Property Committee of Russia, the FUDN under the State Property Committee of Russia and the Administration of the Rostov Region assumed full responsibility for the future fate of Atommash OJSC.
First Deputy Minister of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy Ryabev L.D. in his letter dated September 12, 1996 No. 03-2739 to the Director General of the FUDN Mostovoy P.P., First Deputy Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation Vavilov A.P. , First Deputy Minister of Economy of the Russian Federation Urinson Ya.M. , Head of the Administration of the Rostov region Chuba V.F. and Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of the Rostov Region Voronin V.P. proposed a real plan to save Atommash OJSC from bankruptcy, consisting of the following main points:
But the constructive proposals of Minatom of Russia did not find proper understanding and support. On the proposal and lobbying of the Head of the FUDN Territorial Agency in the Rostov Region Gramotenko T.A. The Arbitration Court of the Rostov Region appointed A.Yu. Stepanov as the External Manager of Atommash OJSC, who at that time was the First Vice-President, and since 1996 the General Director of Energomashcorporation OJSC (EMC). The founders of EMK OJSC included enterprises that were competitors of Atommash OJSC, which was contrary to Russian antimonopoly legislation. The Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation found that in just one year, Energomashcorporation managed to buy 10.8% of the shares and more than 40% of debts on Atommash loans, which, according to international standards, demonstrates a clear conflict of interest.
Head of the Administration of the Rostov Region V.F. Chub took advantage of the letter of the Ministry of Atomic Energy of Russia dated September 12, 1996 No. 03-2739 on the withdrawal of Atommash OJSC from the crisis in the interests of the activities of the External Manager of Atommash OJSC Stepanov A.Yu. In his address to the Director General of the FUDN Mostovoy P.P. dated 19.09.1996 No. 1/6049 Chub V.F. asked to be allowed to write off the cost of fixed assets and construction in progress of Atommash OJSC (according to the list) in the amount of 878 billion rubles by reducing additional capital. This led to a decrease in the assets of the enterprise, the residual book value of which was already sharply underestimated. At the same time, Governor Chub V.F. did not have any authority from the majority of Atommash OJSC shareholders to make an official request to P.P. on approving the depreciation and write-off of property that, according to the Law of the Russian Federation, was the property of thousands of equal shareholders, among which the state itself owned 30% of the shares of Atommash OJSC.
However, in reality, the “Plan for carrying out external management for the financial rehabilitation of Atommash OJSC for the period from 11/29/1995 to 05/29/1997”, put into effect by the decision of the Arbitration Court of the Rostov Region, did not lead to stabilization of the situation. Wage arrears continued to grow at the enterprise, the number of jobs was sharply reduced, and social tension grew in the city of Volgodonsk. Against the background of a sharp decrease in the physical presence and book value of the assets of Atommash OJSC, the share of its accounts payable increased exponentially. The repeated markdowns and sale for nothing of the property of Atommash OJSC, which led to a collapse in the capitalization and value of the assets of the industrial giant, played their extremely negative role. The deliberately inefficient arbitration management at Atommash OJSC resulted in the decision by the Arbitration Court of the Rostov Region to declare the enterprise bankrupt. Formally, Atommash OJSC was forcibly liquidated on November 25, 1999.
Thus, the bankruptcy of Atommash OJSC was actually carried out in the interests of EMK-Atommash OJSC, established on its premises, to which all liquid property and production assets of Atommash OJSC were transferred. After the forced liquidation of Atommash OJSC, its unique property complex was owned by various affiliates of EMK-Atommash OJSC, including Energomash-Atommash LLC, and then Energomash-Atommash CJSC from the Energomash Group of Companies.
During the bankruptcy of Atommash, not only its assets were deliberately brought to prohibitively low prices. The workshops and technological equipment of the enterprise were leased to various limited liability partnerships (LLP) on terms that were obviously unprofitable for Atommash. Strategic raw materials, materials, component parts and semi-finished products were transferred to LLP at many times lower prices. The products manufactured by these LLPs at the premises of Atommash were sold with profit only for the LLP and with damage (losses) for Atommash OJSC, on which these LLPs shifted their costs. Large non-core assets and vast territories belonging to Atommash, including agricultural enterprises with their lands, were also alienated.
The bankruptcy of an enterprise strategic for Russia caused a great resonance in the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation and in the Government of the Russian Federation. So, in his letter to the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Khristenko V.B. dated March 28, 2001 No. A21-1175, First Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Fradkov M.E. asked to conduct an investigation into the actions of the Russian Federal Service for Financial Recovery (Bankruptcy) in relation to Atommash OJSC.
The verification of the facts of bankruptcy of Atommash OJSC, conducted by the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation on the basis of the request of the Committee for Industry, Construction, Transport and High Technologies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation dated October 21, 2000 No. 3.11-21/1312, established that with the participation of specific officials The state suffered enormous material damage. This confirms that the bankruptcy of Atommash OJSC was carried out in order to deprive the property of its main shareholders - the state itself and the YACONTO Concern CJSC (Russia, Moscow), and, consequently, control over the management of the production, economic and financial and economic activities of the industrial giant . In particular, the state lost a 30% stake in Atommash OJSC. Based on the results of the audit, the Collegium of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation issued the relevant Resolution No. 6(289) dated February 22, 2002.
Mikhailov V.N., Minister of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy (1992–1998), recalled in 2008:
“... we couldn't keep Atommash. Having escaped to market freedom, this leading machine-building enterprise for nuclear power plants, having lost industry life-giving support and financial support, has already slid into an economic hole for two years, from which it has not been able to get out to this day. It is regrettable that the Atommash staff did not rebuff a group of people who are making a personal dubious social and environmental career by fighting the construction of the Rostov NPP and slandering the Russian nuclear power industry and industry. Now, with the launch of the first unit of the Volgodonsk nuclear power plant, they are put to shame. The harm that was inflicted on the inhabitants of Volgodonsk, the entire Don region remains on their conscience, of course, if they have one.<…>I was offended by the privatization of Atommash, without the knowledge of the minister, simply in accordance with the laws and regulations that the governors then established, believing that nuclear workers were a cash cow, and there would be no need to invest money there. So the country lost the flagship of domestic engineering for nuclear power plants.
12/25/2009 Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Lisitsyn A.I. sent to the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Putin V.V. letter No. LIS-767/GD with a request to conduct an independent investigation into the bankruptcy of Atommash OJSC based on an audit by the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation and Resolution No. 6(289) dated February 22, 2002 issued by its Board. Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Grin V.Ya. in his reply No. 16/2-4315-07 dated 01.02.2010 to the State Duma of the Russian Federation, he said that the Investigation Department at the Internal Affairs Directorate for Volgodonsk had conducted an investigation into the bankruptcy of Atommash OJSC. However, the Internal Affairs Directorate did not take into account the materials of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, so the decision to refuse to initiate a criminal case was canceled and an additional check was appointed, which, in turn, also did not produce results. Dissatisfied with the lack of results in the organization of an independent objective investigation into the bankruptcy case of Atommash OJSC, December 21, 2010 Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Lisitsyn A.I. appealed to the President of the Russian Federation D.A. Medvedev. with a substantiated letter No. LIS-1282 / GD, in which he asked to give a special instruction to the competent authorities to ensure the protection of Russia's national interests during the verification by the Control Department of the President of the Russian Federation (out. No. A8-6296-5 dated 02.11.2010) of the deliberate bankruptcy of Atommash OJSC , which has no analogue in its scale. 07/08/2011 President of the Russian Federation D.A. Medvedev gave Order No. Pr-1948 to the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, Putin V.V. to consider the issue of acquiring the property complex of the former Atommash OJSC in the interests of the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom, and the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Nurgaliyev R.G. - conduct an additional check of the materials on the deliberate bankruptcy of Atommash OJSC, submitted by the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, and, if there are grounds, make an appropriate procedural decision.
Modernity
In the conditions of market relations, Atommash OJSC becomes diversified. The enterprise is moving to the production of technological equipment for a number of industries and transport: oil refining, metallurgical, etc. Separate single orders began to be accepted for implementation: for the Sea Launch project, Atommash manufactured a 140-ton installer for lifting and installing the rocket on the launch pad. In 1998, the nuclear industry accounted for about 30% of the enterprise's output, the second place was occupied by the manufacture of equipment for the metallurgical industry (25.2%), the third place was equipment for the petrochemical industry (10.9%).
In the 2000s, 80% of the enterprise's production volumes accounted for the manufacture of equipment for oil refining and gas chemistry, 10% for equipment for nuclear power plants and 10% for the production of components for gas turbines and other equipment. In the early 2000s, one of the main activities of the enterprise was the production of slide gate valves for oil trunk pipelines by order of Transneft (since 1999), which was curtailed by the mid-2000s. Since 2002, at the facilities owned by the bankrupt Atommash OJSC, serial production of gas turbines for low-capacity thermal power plants (up to 36 MW) has been carried out. By 2003, the number of employees at the plant was reduced to 4,300 people with a production volume of 1.4 billion rubles.
In 2004, the management of the enterprise announced a four-fold reduction in output for nuclear power enterprises and the orientation of the main production to consumers in the gas industry. Since 2009, production of equipment for nuclear power plants has been resumed at the facilities of the former Atommash OJSC. At present, the enterprise is a monopoly manufacturer of melt localization devices for nuclear power plants in Russia. In the future, it is possible at Atommash to organize the production of vessels for lead-bismuth fast reactors SVBR-100 (capacity 100 MW), developed by the Podolsk OKB Gidropress for small and medium-sized nuclear power plants. Delivery of the first reactor is scheduled for 2014.
Among the largest regular customers of the enterprise are such companies as LUKOIL, Atomenergomash, GAZPROM, Rosneft, Severstal, Akron, NLMK, Evrokhim, TNK-BP and many others.
On March 21, 2009, Sergei Kiriyenko again visited Atommash together with Sergei Sobyanin, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Rosatom State Corporation. Atommash is also interesting from the point of view of developing competition in the nuclear industry,- said Kirienko, – And Atommash can become a competitor not only for Russian, but also for foreign manufacturers of equipment for nuclear power plants.
In November 2012, for the first time after a 26-year break, the Volgodonsk branch of CJSC AEM-Technologies (the industrial site of Atommash) began the complete manufacturing of a nuclear reactor. The VVER-1200 type reactor, manufactured by the Volgodonsk Branch of CJSC AEM-Technologies, will become the heart of the reactor plant of the Baltic NPP. This type of equipment is the main one for the plant, which was designed and built for the manufacture of unique nuclear equipment.
10/18/2011 Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Lisitsyn A.I. sent to the President of the Russian Federation Medvedev D.A. letter No. LIS-1676/GD with a request to support the proposal of YACONTO LLC (Russia, Moscow) to restore the status quo of Atommash OJSC through the implementation of Project-A or an alternative option set out in a letter from YACONTO LLC to the President RF Medvedev D.A. (ref. No. 111018-А01 dated 10/18/2011). In response No. 1-13/12160 dated April 6, 2012 to YACONTO LLC, which is the full legal successor of YACONTO Concern CJSC and the majority shareholder of Atommash OJSC, to its appeal to the President of the Russian Federation D.A. Medvedev. (out. No. 120227-A01 dated February 27, 2012) and on behalf of the Government Office of the Russian Federation, Deputy General Director of the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom Komarov K.B. said that the State Corporation shares the concern about the current state of the Atommash production complex, which continues to be one of the largest power engineering enterprises in Russia, since orders for the production of equipment for the needs of the nuclear industry are placed at the latter's facilities. Rosatom's response to YACONTO LLC also states that the issue of the possibility and procedure for implementing Project-A (to restore the status quo of Atommash OJSC) is under the jurisdiction of the Federal Agency for State Property Management (Rosimushchestvo) , whose competence, in accordance with Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 05.06.2008 No. 432, includes the protection of property and other rights and legitimate interests of the Russian Federation in the management of federal property.
The Investigative Committee under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia initiated a criminal case against the owner of the Energomash Group of Companies, Alexander Stepanov (former Arbitration Manager of Atommash OJSC). Stepanov is charged with unauthorized receipt of a commercial loan from Sberbank of Russia in the amount of 12.7 billion rubles. The criminal prosecution of Alexander Stepanov was initiated by the personal statement of the President of Sberbank German Gref. Upon completion of the investigation of the case, he was transferred to the Presnensky Court of Moscow (Case No. 1-149 / 2012, art. 30 part 3, art. 159 part 4 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - fraud on an especially large scale and
We continue to introduce you to history of Volgodonsk. As far as you remember the birth of a new city was closely connected with the foundation of the giant plant Atommash.
Exactly Atommash turned Volgodonsk to the center of the All-Union shock Komsomol construction. What led in the middle 70s mass arrival of young people in the city.
Our young city was not accidentally chosen as a place for the construction of the plant. Its location was strategically convenient - the possibility of using the Volga-Don Canal made the transportation of blanks and finished products many times cheaper.
Atommash was created primarily as a specialized enterprise for the production of products for nuclear power.
In March 1973 by order of the Minister, the Volgodonsk Plant of Heavy Machine Building (VZTM) was renamed the Volgodonsk Plant of Nuclear Power Engineering - Atommash. From that moment began the history of the plant, which thundered throughout the country. It was he who brought our city "the third youth".
At the facility under construction near Krasny Yar, by that time, about 13 thousand people. The first director of the plant Atommash Was assigned Mikhail Fedorovich Tarelkin. In March 1975 construction Atommash was declared a shock Komsomol construction site.
“You were born in Volgodonsk. So carry through your whole life love for your native city, respect for the good deeds of fellow countrymen, bow to the hardworking hands of your father and mother, who built a beautiful city, erected the miracle hero Atommash. Be a worthy heir to their labor glory and working honor! Walk firmly along the path of life indicated by great Lenin. Remember that life is not measured by the years lived, but by the fact that each of us has done good for people, which left a mark on the Earth.
Introduction to Chapter 2 of the book "I am Atommash".
December 22, 1975 the first column was installed on the main building. And already in June, the first floor block of the main building was raised to the design level and installed. His weight reached 76 tons, the area was measured in 540 square meters. In a year, in 1977 started production. A in 1981 produced the first reactor for 2nd power unit South Ukrainian NPP.
The third building was also erected in record time. April 7, 1976 in building No. 3, concrete was laid in the foundation for the equipment. In October, the first machine was installed, and December 17 the corps went into action. There, in the square 30 thousand square meters, housed 4 workshops pre-production:
- mechanical repair,
- workshop of non-standardized equipment,
- electrical repair,
- instrumental.
Two years later, over the construction of the plant Atommash in Volgodonsk worked more 27 thousand builders and installers. And while the construction of one giant was going on, the city began to prepare for another grand construction.
April 25, 1979 the first stone of the Energomash plant was laid. As conceived by its creators, it was supposed to manufacture steam generators and water heating installations for oil industry, as well as products for nuclear power plants.
In 1981 the first piles were installed for the giant, which was to become larger Atommash. But, the far-reaching plans of the designers were not destined to come true.
One of the reasons for the termination of the construction of Energomash was the possible subsidence of soil under the plant. And to it was added the fact that a cheaper way was found to increase the return of oil wells. All these events played a direct role in the completion of work at this facility.
In November 1982 production association Atommash was named L.I. Brezhnev . was appointed as its general manager Vladimir Gerasimovich Ovchar.
At the end 1985 Atommash workers manufactured the world's first nuclear AST-500 reactor. He was sent to the city of Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod). After its release, such products began to be mass-produced at the plant.
By that time the workers Atommash has already been made:
- three reloading machines MPS-1000,
- three reactor vessels,
- four steam generators.
The State Quality Mark was awarded to six products for nuclear power plants. It is worth saying that back in the early 80s, the team set itself the task of producing all samples of products for nuclear power plants only for the Quality Mark.
Besides, since 1977 13 kilometers from Volgodonsk construction started Rostov nuclear power plant. It was planned that it would become the place of work for many teams of builders who, with Atommash go to the station.
The Rostov NPP was named a regional shock Komsomol construction site, where young people from Atommash. Also, along with the construction and execution of government orders, in 1986 the enterprise began production of a number of consumer goods:
- parts for VAZ car,
- school furniture.
But already in those years, the plant began to experience difficult times. After the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, orders for the nuclear industry began to fall sharply. Residents of the city categorically supported the termination of construction of the Rostov nuclear power plant.
“When the evil winds go to sleep somewhere far, far away in the Sal steppes and the reddish veil of invisible grains of sand they have raised falls, a green-blue chain of buildings opens on the edge of a young beautiful city. As if the Tsimlyansk Sea itself spilled into the steppe and froze in clear cubes and parallelepipeds. This is Atommash. He grew up here in order to become, by the will of the Party and the people, a giant of the domestic power engineering industry with a well-established mass production of nuclear installations of various types and capacities.”
This is a quote from the book "I am Atommash" published in 1987. The Chernobyl disaster had already happened and perestroika was in full swing, and the authors of the collection were still living with the sensations of the previous era. The era of large-scale all-Union construction projects, grandiose plans for commissioning dozens of nuclear power plants - the need to solve colossal tasks instilled in people confidence in the future and a sense of the importance of the work they were doing. “The plant was built and produced equipment at the same time,” says Alexander Fridrikhovich Groo, chief engineer of Atommash. - There was no stagnation here - people worked hard and always achieved some result. And imagine, then my colleagues from the party committee, who know me as flaky, come to me, a young power engineer, and say: “Have you started to rebuild?” And why should I? I have worked and continue to work, I have no time to rebuild. There was some uncertainty, and after all this came the collapse. Now, to me, already a middle-aged power engineer, and to my comrades, confidence is returning again: after all, after a quarter of a century, we returned home - to Rosatom.
At today's Atommash, all these emotions - hope and purposefulness, confidence and active activity - are striking. Meeting more with techies, I saw: people really feel it and, most importantly, they know what they are doing, they know how their plant will grow. I fell under the spell of the important work that these people are doing here now, as, probably, once, in the mid-80s, the authors of the collection “I am Atommash”.
“You write correctly about our plant,” demanded the factory driver, who met me at the Rostov airport, “otherwise even my neighbors do not believe that we have everything alive at the plant, they lie that there is no roof in the shop, the windows are broken, all the machines are stolen or dismantled, and we also passed off a Soviet one for a new reactor. I tell them: go to the factory yourself, old fools, there are excursions there, children, students go, and you go with them - but where is it. Write - they will believe the Moscow magazine. The reason for the trip to Atommash was the shipment of the VVER reactor vessel for the Belarusian NPP - the first one produced at the plant after almost a thirty-year break and the first post-Soviet one not made by Izhora Plants - an enterprise that was never part of the structures of Rosatom.
City near Krasny Yar
Atommash was to become the world's largest and most technologically advanced plant for the production of nuclear equipment, where it was planned to establish a conveyor production of large-sized hull products. It was conceived back in the 1960s, when the rising Soviet economy began to face a growing shortage of electricity, and, having calculated the energy balances, business executives decided to cover it in the European part of the country through the mass commissioning of nuclear power units based on VVER reactors. It was assumed that three or four sets of equipment per year would be produced by Izhora Plants, which had already gained momentum at that time, and up to eight by the future Atommash. In 1969, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR issued a resolution on the construction of the Volgodonsk heavy engineering plant, and a year and a half later, construction was launched. The city of Volgodonsk itself grew up in the late 1940s along with the Volga-Don shipping canal, another grandiose construction site of socialism - then a port was built here, a center of convenient transport logistics with access through the Don and Volga to all the border seas of the European part of the Union, and during construction of a new plant, the city actually experienced its second birth.
At first, things went slowly: earthworks were going on, infrastructure was being pulled up to Krasny Yar, a place not far from the city, but after the adoption of the technical project in 1974 and the announcement of the All-Union Komsomol construction, things went much faster. Viktor Vasilievich Krotov, one of the main initiators and curators of the construction of the plant, is called the catalyst for this colossal undertaking. He is one of those great technocrats, almost unknown today, to whom we should be grateful for the creation of the industrial and energy infrastructure of the country, which we still use. At first, Viktor Krotov supervised Atommash as First Deputy Minister of Heavy, Power and Transport Engineering of the USSR, and since 1975 - as Minister of Power Engineering of the USSR. And if in 1975 13,000 builders and installers worked on the construction of the plant, then two years later, including through his efforts, 27,000.
Mikhail Fedorovich Tarelkin, the second director of Atommash, as Vladimir Borisovich Kozlov, the curator of the factory museum and the former deputy head of the enterprise’s hull equipment, recalls, did not have to convince the minister for a long time that already at the construction stage it was necessary to start training specialists for the main production: “For this purpose, young people from different institutes were sent to a special faculty of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, where they were taught how to handle the equipment of the primary circuit of nuclear power plants, then they were trained at the Izhora plant, and the most intelligent of them later took leadership positions here.
The plant was innovative for its time. The idea was as follows, Alexander Groo explains: to group technological flows in such a way that logistics to reduce costs in the organization of the technological process was optimal. It was assumed that the workpiece enters one end of the vessel body, and the finished reactor exits the other. The first building, 720 meters long and about 30 hectares in area, is organized in this way, it houses the production lines for the main equipment of the entire primary circuit: the reactor, the steam generator, the superheater separators, and other related devices.
“Such an approach in our time has greatly simplified the task of specialists restoring nuclear production at the plant and implementing the production system of Rosatom, aimed at a qualitative increase in labor productivity,” Andrey Anatolyevich Marchenko, technical director of the enterprise, told Expert. In the 1970s, the creation of such technological lines brought along new building technologies - to speed up construction, a joint design and construction scheme was applied, and the usual practice, when a building was built, and only then equipment was tied to it, was turned upside down: at Atommash, the best machines in the world were first selected for the technological lines being built (60 percent were imported from abroad), and under them the builders erected communications and a frame, and at the end they were covered with prefabricated frame-type material - sandwich panels and soft roofing . Moreover, they planned, thinking about the prospects for decades: ordering machine tools, planning workshops - everything was done with the expectation of producing reactor vessels up to two gigawatts of unit power, that is, twice as much as that of the serial VVER-1000.
Matchbox strategy
Construction went on around the clock. The construction headquarters was headed by the second secretary of the regional committee, members of the Central Committee and ministerial workers came one after another, from ministries - all with engineering experience, says chief engineer Groo: “The same Krotov immediately went to the shops upon arrival, he had a habit that at first seemed ridiculous: walking through the shops, he wrote something on a matchbox - and how much, it would seem, can be written down there? But after that he put it, covered with some signs, in front of him and, looking only at these records, held very practical technical meetings - he knew his brainchild so thoroughly that he could set both tactical and strategic tasks, using only insignificant hints. .
In 1979, from Izhora Plants, where the entire domestic metallurgical and machine-building base for the production of VVER reactor plants was concentrated at that time, shells - blanks for the reactor vessel were brought to Atommash. Despite careful previous preparations, many surprises were encountered during the manufacture of the first reactor vessel at the new site, Vladimir Kozlov recalls. To work on a responsible product, skilled specialists had to be sought throughout the Union, professionals were even attracted from Komsomolsk-on-Amur, where they assembled nuclear submarines. “Although we were well prepared theoretically, in practice many nuances baffled us, the Izhora people helped us a lot then and led us literally on a short leash to cope with all the difficulties.” As a result, already in 1981, the first Atommash reactor plant went to the South Ukrainian Nuclear Power Plant, where it is still successfully operated.
If the chronicle of the construction of Atommash is described in detail, then less is known about the plans and even about the start of construction here, in Volgodonsk, of another enterprise - Energomash, which is not inferior to Atommash in terms of the grandeur of its swing. It was assumed that on an area of more than two square kilometers the Don analogue of the Izhora Plants should be located, that is, a metallurgical and machine-building complex with steelmaking, rolling divisions that pass the baton of products to metalworking and machine-building shops. This industrial giant was to employ more than 20 thousand people, but at first Atommash, drawing on all the resources, slowed down this project, and finally it stopped after the honorable removal in 1983 from the ministerial post of Viktor Krotov, the main Volgodonsk lobbyist. Kramatorsk-based Energomashspetsstal, located about 450 kilometers from Volgodonsk, was ordered to join the single production complex with Atommash, which was left without its own metallurgy. Energomash as a metallurgical project finally stood up after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which intensified the incipient recession of the Soviet economy.
In Soviet times, Atommash managed to produce 13 reactors - five VVER-1000s are now operating at Ukrainian nuclear power plants, two thousandths in Russia at the Rostov and Balakovo nuclear power plants, another AST-500 was installed in Gorky at a nuclear thermal power plant that did not work, and five buildings remained unclaimed due to the halt in the construction of nuclear power plants after Chernobyl.
The factory workers, left without orders from the nuclear industry, reconfigured part of the idle lines for the production of equipment for oil and gas workers, chemists and metallurgists. In accordance with the trends of that time, they also began to produce consumer goods - trunks for Zhiguli, metal products for school furniture. Later, in accordance with the Lease Law of 1989, according to which the labor collective could lease its enterprise from the state, the plant was divided into a hundred enterprises, which began to be surrounded by fences right inside the workshops. In the mid-1990s, the enterprise went bankrupt, and Energomashcorporation came to management. To this holding, which united many enterprises, including key ones for the nuclear industry, such as, for example, the Podolsk ZiO, which is now part of the structure of Rosatom, different attitude, says Alexander Groo. But at the initial stage, the head of this company and the former director of Atommash, Vladimir Gerasimovich Ovchar, “pulled the plant out of a deep dive”, managed to stop the complete dispersion of assets and the collapse of the enterprise: all cooperatives were squeezed out, the main equipment of the plant was preserved, barter funds appeared for the purchase of metal and promotion of the plant as a manufacturer of large-sized products, orders from oil and gas workers went, the production of spare parts for nuclear power plants continued. Gradually, the assets of Energomashcorporation were taken over by Alexander Stepanov, who already in the 2000s started a grandiose project to create hundreds of small gas turbine thermal power plants in Russia and created at the enterprise a new production for Atommash, the production of gas turbines themselves, as a result of which, according to the factory workers, firstly, under him the backbone of professionals was preserved, and secondly, many young people were trained, who still continue to work at the plant. About 120 turbines were assembled, but most of them, due to an incorrectly built marketing strategy, remained gathering dust in the shops (for more details, see "How to remove Chernobyl damage", "Expert" No. 6 for 2013).
In 2009, Rosatom made the first attempt to buy the assets of Atommash, but they "hung" because of the debts of Energomashcorporation, which was under bankruptcy proceedings, and the deal fell through.
Core trap
By this time, Atommash was desperately needed by Rosatom. The fact is that the corporations have always been aware of their vulnerability and dependence on the only manufacturer of hull equipment of the "nuclear island" at that time - Izhora Plants, which since 1996 have been part of the Uralmash-Izhora group (United Machine Building Plants, OMZ , has been controlled by Gazprombank since 2006. - "Expert"). Therefore, after Sergei Kiriyenko came there as the head in 2005, as part of the strategy of creating a full-cycle nuclear corporation, from mining and enriching uranium, manufacturing engineering products and building nuclear power plants to decommissioning and disposing of radioactive waste, it began to create the missing link - power engineering division of Atomenergomash (AEM). In 2006, Rosatom proposed to Gazprombank to set up a joint venture for the production of the main equipment for the primary circuit of nuclear power plants, but the deal did not take place, because, according to our information, Gazprombank allegedly did not like the idea of transferring the assets of the joint venture to offshore under the control of Rosatom.
Relations with OMZ were aggravated against the backdrop of the overly optimistic, according to many experts, program for the construction of nuclear power plants, announced by Rosatom at the time, which required the rapid production of equipment, leaving no time to organize competitive production. It was not unreasonably rumored in the nuclear department that the owners of Izhora Plants were trying to shift the solution of their problems to consumers, including the modernization of their enterprises and their own inefficiency in the price of products, which persisted precisely because of the absence of conditions for competitive competition in the domestic Russian market. Without an alternative supplier, it was practically useless to put pressure on the only manufacturer of primary circuit vessel equipment (a reactor, a steam generator and a number of large-sized critical products, such as, for example, a core melt trap, which has become a default at every new NPP in order to increase safety) at least, this was the opinion in Rosatom, which was forced to make a final decision on the development of its own power engineering, starting with the consolidation of disparate plants that are part of its own structure based on AEM Technologies. Since none of these enterprises was suitable for the production of reactor vessels, steam generators and other technological containers, and problems arose with the purchase of Atommash, it was decided to adapt Petrozavodskmash (PMZ), an enterprise for the production of paper machines located on moment of purchase in 2010 in a difficult situation.
The subsequent winning by AEM Technologies (with basic production at PMZ) of the Rosatom tender for the supply of two reactor vessels for the Baltic NPP was perceived by market observers extremely painfully, in particular, due to the absence in the tender documentation of the condition on the availability of references from the manufacturer. To be fair, it should be noted that at negotiations at various levels, OMZ, according to experts who know this market, took a far from constructive position on pricing issues even before the tender, at which Izhora Plants set a price of 1.7 billion rubles, and AEM -Technologies”, based, according to the company, on the estimates of world auditors, - 0.9 billion (for more details, see “An expensive way to buy cheap”, “Expert” No. 50 for 2010). Meanwhile, such a step on the part of Rosatom, which could be regarded as a bluff to a certain extent, led to the fact that the offer of AEM Technologies became the base one on the Russian market and for subsequent trading. This does not prevent Izhora from fulfilling its obligations to manufacture five reactor vessels and many other important equipment for Russian and foreign nuclear power plants under various Rosatom projects. Moreover, the corporation will not be able to realize its plans in the foreseeable future without Izhora Plants, even taking into account Atommash, the inclusion of which into Atomenergomash marks the formation of its own vertically integrated full-cycle power plant complex. Nevertheless, one can apparently say that OMZ lost to Rosatom in the corporate battle. It is almost impossible now to change its results, given the support of Rosatom at the highest state level. The monopoly of the Izhora plants has been broken.
In the same 2010, Rosatom acquired the Ukrainian Energomashspetsstal in Kramatorsk, which worked in Soviet times in a single technological connection with Atommash. Naturally, this step was also regarded as a blow to the division of the Uralmash-Izhora group OMZ-Special Steels, which at that time was the monopoly Russian manufacturer of metallurgical blanks for reactor vessels and steam generators. In Rosatom itself, the creation of a similar plant and the development of the necessary technological background from scratch - instead of buying a ready-made enterprise - was estimated at billions of dollars and believed that it could take more than five years to launch and debug a new production. It is surprising that, having bought the assets of this high-class metallurgical enterprise - one of the few successful high-tech acquisitions abroad in the practice of Russian enterprises, according to experts from leading world-class metallurgical organizations, such as the St. Petersburg NPO Prometey or the capital TsNIITMASH, Rosatom was forced justify five years ago. Now, in a period of unfortunate tension between Russia and Ukraine due to the irrepressible opportunistic bureaucratic love for the Motherland and anonymous letters from patriots, many are trying to keep silent about the existence of this now by no means an import-substituting asset. Of course, the geographical proximity of Kramatorsk to Slavyansk should not make the owners of EMSS optimistic, but the Ukrainian company last years did not disrupt a single supply either under amicable agreements (this is more than 70% of the plant's deliveries), or under Russian contracts. Blanks for VVER-1200 reactors and steam generators for the same Belarusian nuclear power plant and RITM-200 reactors (the offer price for blanks for ship reactors at the domestic OMZ-Spetsstal was almost twice as high as at EMSS) for new Russian icebreakers were delivered on time. Additional guarantees against disruption of supplies to Russia are the lobbying capabilities of Rosatom itself, which provides fuel and technological support for the operation of more than 15 nuclear reactors at five operating Ukrainian nuclear power plants, which today provide almost two-thirds of the electricity produced in the neighboring country.
new wave people
In 2012, Rosatom took Atommash under its control and announced plans to transfer the production of hull equipment from Petrozavodsk to Volgodonsk. “Many comrades had doubts about our plant,” Yury Oetingen, quality director of the enterprise, shares with me. “Moreover, Atommash went through a difficult period when its core production stopped. But we have been manufacturing equipment for nuclear power plants for the third year already, and as a person sitting in this position, I am sure that we are doing it with high quality.” According to him, industry guidelines dictate that if the product is manufactured at the enterprise for the first time or after a long break, then the volume of control points should be at least 50% of the number of total technological operations. For the equipment produced for the Belarusian NPP (apart from the reactor, there are four more steam generators), this figure reached 80–90%. So at various stages of production, only the reactor vessel passes 315 so-called control points, while collecting four times as many signatures from responsible persons.
Yuri Etingen is 34 years old, he has been working at the plant for the last eight years, they are the same age as the technical director Andrey Marchenko, and both are from the wave of young people who came to the enterprise already in the 2000s. Etingen says that more than half of the specialists in his department managed to work back in the 1980s, and they are well versed in the specifics of the production of hull equipment for a nuclear island, where the manufacture of the product itself takes only 40% of the time, and 60% is spent on its control at various stages of technological transformation.
“As for personnel, Atommash is in an advantageous position compared to other machine-building enterprises,” Andrey Marchenko supports his colleague. - At the key redistributions: in welding, machining, assembly, in the design bureau - there are people with thirty or even forty years of experience, and next to us, young, but already with Atommash sourdough. Other machine builders complain that they have pensioners and pioneers - some can no longer do anything, while others still can't do anything. Our situation is unique, and we, in our thirties and forties, were lucky: we had and still have experienced teachers, and we already know a lot ourselves, and each new shipment of a hand-made product gives us more confidence. At the risk of seeming pompous, I will nevertheless say: we already understand that we are involved in an important cause, we have touched the miracle of creation. We're making history. And most importantly, we see that Atommash has prospects, the portfolio of orders is clear. We can see the way."