Bangladesh's $13 Billion Russian-Built Nuclear Plant Edges Toward Startup After Fuel Shipment Delay

Bangladesh has been trying to build a nuclear power plant since the 1960s. It's finally about to happen.

The Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, a 2.4-gigawatt facility on the Padma River about 150 kilometers west of Dhaka, is in its final commissioning stages, according to AFP. The first of its two reactors is scheduled to be switched on by the end of 2026, with the second unit expected to come online within a year, Md Zahedul Hasan, managing director of state-owned Nuclear Power Plant Company Bangladesh, told AFP.

This is a $13 billion project, financed largely through loans from Russia, according to AFP and Anadolu Agency, which put the cost closer to $12.65 billion. Russia's state nuclear corporation Rosatom built it under a 2015 agreement with Dhaka. Bangladesh now owes Moscow a great deal of money for this project.

The Fuel Finally Arrives, Late

A shipment of Russian uranium fuel landed in Dhaka on the night of Friday, October 2, aboard a special cargo aircraft, according to Banglanews and Anadolu Agency. It had originally been scheduled to arrive September 24, but the flight couldn't operate because it failed to get clearance to use Pakistani airspace, officials told Banglanews and TBS News. The flight was rescheduled once more before finally landing.

According to TBS News, the shipment made stops in Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India en route from Russia. A convoy moved the fuel from Dhaka to the Rooppur site under army escort, arriving around midday Saturday, October 3, where it was formally received by project director Kabir Hossain and Hasan.

Telecommunications and Science and Technology Minister Fakir Mahbub Anam told a private television channel that the remaining fuel shipments are expected to arrive within seven to 10 days of October 3, according to TBS News. In total, nine cargo flights are bringing fuel to Bangladesh: two carrying 48 uranium assemblies to refuel Unit 1, and seven carrying 163 assemblies for the initial fuel load of Unit 2, TBS News reported. Rosatom has said the entire fuel delivery program will wrap up by December.

Safety Tests Still Running

Before any of this fuel goes critical, the plant has to pass pressure tests on its safety valves. Prothom Alo reported that a test at 16 megapascals, the reactor's normal operating pressure, was completed successfully on September 30 after an earlier test had turned up faults. A second test at 18 megapascals, a higher stress threshold meant to confirm the system holds up beyond normal conditions, was expected to follow shortly after.

Shafiqul Islam, a professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Dhaka, told Prothom Alo that a successful 16-megapascal result means the plant can move toward operation, but the higher-pressure test is necessary to confirm the reactor is safe beyond baseline conditions. He said Bangladesh's plan to put power on the grid in December was realistic if everything goes as scheduled.

Officials cited by TBS News and Prothom Alo say the first unit, rated at 1,200 megawatts, will initially supply just 300 megawatts to the national grid on a trial basis once it comes online.

A Russian Enclave in Rural Bangladesh

The project has reshaped the area around it. AFP reported that thousands of Russian workers have lived at Rooppur for years building and installing equipment, with shop signs now appearing in Bangla, English and Russian, and restaurants serving borscht alongside local dishes. Alexander Vladimirovich Skvortsov, a Russian installation technician who moved there with his family in 2024, told AFP the project changed his life. Md Emon Khan, 28, left a garment-factory job in Dhaka to sell produce to the workers at Rooppur, telling AFP he's picked up some Russian on the job.

Not everyone is thrilled about living next to a reactor. AFP noted that some residents fear the risks of having a nuclear facility in their backyard, even as plant officials insist stringent safety measures, including lessons drawn from past nuclear accidents, have been built into the design. A 15-year-old resident, Mohammad Nafiz, told AFP he sees little to fear standing near the plant's radiation monitoring tower. Bangladesh has zero prior experience operating a reactor, and this is a Soviet-design pressurized water reactor technology, VVER-1200, built by a foreign state contractor in a country that has never run one before.

For a nation of 170 million people hammered by a fuel crisis tied to the conflict in the Middle East, per AFP, a domestic power source that doesn't depend on imported gas or oil is a genuine upgrade. Once both units are running, Rooppur is expected to supply more than 10 percent of Bangladesh's electricity demand, according to AFP. Whether the December timeline holds depends on one more pressure test and whether the remaining Russian fuel shipments clear their flight paths without another airspace standoff.