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Ukraine -A Country of New Romantics

13 October, 00:00

The national nuclear energy company Enerhoatom's joint labor committee resolved last Wednesday to start a collective labor dispute with the management. Nuclear workers believe that the government, by transferring a mere Hr 15 million to the company account (which is less than half its monthly wage liability), violated the officially approved redemption schedule. Unconfirmed sources state that union leaders have to exert serious efforts to contain outbursts of protest at nuclear power stations.

This coincided in time with Ukraine's power system's disconnection from that of Russia. Power Industry Minister Oleksiy Sheberstov said that the shutoff was caused by Ukraine's surpassing Russian power allocations. On October 6 alone, Ukraine was supplied 52 million kWh more than scheduled, including a 22 million kWh overflow which should not exceed 18 million kWh.

To resume cooperation with Russia, Ukraine will have either to increase its generating capacity or shut off some of its consumers. Mr. Sheberstov added that to prevent breakdowns, the Power Energy Ministry will resort to "fan" shutoffs, and that it could not disconnect all consumers in default (51% are disconnected to date). On October 5, however, he reported to the Cabinet that the coal stock is 1.7 million tons higher than last year's, and the same applies to fuel oil, whereas water reservoirs are filled to capacity. Power supplies can be resumed not earlier than the spring of 1999, meaning that the frequency decline may reach a critically low level, in which case automatic shutoffs will follow any malfunctions at power stations.

Newspaper output №:

№36, (1998)

Section

Day After Day