Head of Russia's nuclear corporation Sergei Kiriyenko says the full control of Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) will be transferred to the Islamic Republic by mid-2013.

"It (Bushehr NPP) should be commissioned in the first half of next year," said the head of Russia's Rosatom corporation, a major contractor in charge of the project, Interfax reported on Monday.

"Everything there (in Bushehr NPP) has been launched, it is in operation," Kiriyenko added.


The initial construction of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant began in 1975 by German companies, but the work was halted following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

In 1995, Iran and Russia reached an agreement to complete the project, but power generation was delayed several times due to a number of technical and financial problems.

Iran officially launched the power plant on September 12, 2011, which started by generating electricity at 40 percent of its capacity.

The 1,000-megawatt plant was connected to the country’s national power grid with the power of 60 MW on September 3, 2011. It reached the capacity of 190 MW on September 27, 2011, and a day later it increased its capacity to 300 MW.

The plant reached its full electricity production capacity of 1,000 megawatts for the first time in early September 2012.

The Bushehr NPP, located southeast of the city of Bushehr along the Persian Gulf, operates under the full supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
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News ID 183758