VILNIUS, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- Lithuania's shut-down Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP), which is carrying out multi-billion-euro decommissioning projects, plans to start dismantling the cores of its two reactors in 2031 and finish the work by 2042, the Baltic News Service (BNS) reported on Thursday.

The company estimates the total project cost at nearly 500 million euros (600 million U.S. dollars): 93 million euros for preparation, 63 million euros for dismantling, and more than 300 million euros for demolition and waste management.

INPP CEO Linas Bauzys told a press conference that preparations are getting underway for the most complex stage of dismantling, noting that no one in the world has ever dismantled a Russian-designed RBMK reactor before.

Valdas Ledzinskas, head of planning at INPP, said there is currently no technology for dismantling this type of reactor.

"There is no ready-made technology for dismantling an RBMK reactor, because this is the first time this is being done," he said.

According to Bauzys, once the reactor cores are dismantled, the graphite waste will be transferred to a temporary storage facility, which is planned to be built by 2035. Later, the waste will be moved to a deep repository.

The European Commission (EC) has proposed allocating 678 million euros for INPP decommissioning projects for 2028-2034.

Lithuania agreed to shut down the Ignalina NPP as part of its accession agreement to the European Union in 2004, as the Soviet era reactors were judged to be unsafe to operate within the European bloc. The plant should be fully offline by 2038. (1 euro = 1.2 dollar) Enditem