UK-Russia Closed Nuclear Cities Partnership

This project is to provide assistance to the firm 'Siberian Electronic Technologies Ltd' (SiET) at Zheleznogorsk to enable it, in partnership with 'Siberian Industrial Thermal Insulation' (SITI) and the production group 'Siberian Orientir', to create a production facility for flexible pre-insulated irradiation-cross-linked polythene (PEX) pipes, and thereby to provide 40 new jobs for former weapons scientists currently employed by MCK.

SiET have no immediate hopes of selling PEX pipe outside Russia (except in Mongolia and China, where they are already active), but they are seeking a partnership with a Western firm, so that they can purchase a license to the best Western manufacturing technology on favourable terms, both for bare pipes, and for the more complex multi-layer pipes with insulation and mechanical sheathes required in some applications. They have identified a number of possible partners in the UK and Germany - the candidate firms include Gamma Service, Gerodur and Widos in Germany and IPPEC and ISOTRON in the UK. They hope that the selected partner will not only give them a low-cost licence to their preferred method of irradiation for both large diameter and composite pipes, but also offer a long-term partnership, with sharing of R&D, and help with the procurement of specialist manufacturing equipment. An outline proposal for the project was developed and submitted to the SG in February. SG approved ?20k for travel grants and market research report acquisition. A partnering visit to the UK and Germany was organised in June as a part of preliminary research activities.

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