Nuclear Energy News

Rosatom Delivers First Nuclear Fuel for Bangladesh’s Rooppur Unit 2

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Russia’s Rosatom has delivered the first batch of nuclear fuel for Unit 2 of Bangladesh’s Rooppur plant, World Nuclear News reported on October 28, 2026, as the country’s second Russian-supplied VVER-1200 reactor moves toward becoming Bangladesh’s first fully fuelled nuclear unit alongside its twin.

From Siberia to the Padma River by air and road

The fuel assemblies were manufactured at the Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant, part of Rosatom’s fuel arm TVEL, and flown into Dhaka on October 26 aboard a specialised cargo aircraft carrying 41 tonnes of fuel. Three trucks then moved the shipment to the Rooppur site under army escort on October 27, where it now sits in a dedicated storage facility pending use. Rosatom says every consignment undergoes mandatory incoming inspection — visual and instrumental checks carried out jointly by Bangladeshi technical staff, the general contractor and the fuel manufacturer. Rosatom had set out in September that Unit 2’s fuel would arrive in several consignments between October and December 2026, moved by air in stages rather than as a single delivery; Bangladeshi media have also reported that an earlier shipment was delayed by airspace clearance issues, which Russia said it would route around.

Unit 2 follows a reactor that only just went critical

Rooppur Unit 2’s fuel loading comes less than three weeks after Unit 1 reached first criticality on October 11, having received its operating licence on April 16 and completed the loading of 163 fuel assemblies in May. The two 1,200-megawatt-class VVER-1200 pressurized water reactors, cooled by the Padma River about 160 kilometres from Dhaka, are being built under a 2015 contract with Rosatom’s Atomstroyexport worth an initial $12.65 billion. Construction on Unit 2 began in July 2018, roughly eight months after Unit 1’s. Rosatom is simultaneously shipping a separate batch of 48 assemblies for Unit 1’s first refuelling, which is due once that unit completes its initial one-year fuel cycle — meaning two distinct fuel pipelines, for a brand-new unit and a refuelling cycle, are running into Rooppur in parallel this autumn.

Bangladesh’s biggest single bet on nuclear power

Rooppur is Bangladesh’s first nuclear power plant and, at a combined 2,400 MW of gross capacity, by far its largest single power project, designed for an initial 60-year operating life with an option to extend by 20 more years. The project has moved in stages since Rosatom and the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission signed their original cooperation agreement in February 2011: a first site licence followed in 2016, Unit 1 construction began in November 2017, and the plant achieved nuclear-facility status in October 2023 when its first fuel batch arrived. With Unit 1 now critical and Unit 2 receiving its own fuel, Bangladesh is on course to become one of the smaller group of countries — alongside recent entrants such as Slovakia, whose Mochovce 4 reactor connected to the grid in October — to bring new nuclear capacity online this decade through a Rosatom-built plant.

A tight shipping schedule through the end of the year

Rosatom’s own disclosures point to a project still running on a compressed, multi-shipment timetable: of the roughly 163 fuel assemblies needed for Unit 2’s initial core load, the October 26-27 delivery is only the first of seven planned flights carrying that unit’s fuel, part of nine total shipments planned for the Rooppur site once Unit 1’s refuelling batch is counted in. Each consignment has to clear inspection at Novosibirsk, survive air transport into Dhaka, and pass a second round of checks on arrival before it is cleared for storage — a logistics chain that Bangladeshi outlets have reported was disrupted at least once already this autumn by airspace clearance problems, forcing Rosatom to reroute a shipment. Barring further delays, Rosatom’s September schedule calls for all of Unit 2’s fuel to be on site by the end of December 2026, which would put loading of the reactor’s core — the step that follows Unit 1’s own path toward criticality — within reach in the first months of 2027.