"In the next 13 years within the overall growth of energy consumption in Russia the share of atomic energy will increase from today's level of 16 percent to reach almost 23 or 24 percent," Khristenko said in a transcript of a television interview released Saturday by the state-run RIA-Novosti news agency.

Russia will start building new atomic energy reactors next year, with the reactors due to begin operating in 2011 or 2012, Khristenko said, without stating the overall number of reactors to be built.

The head of Russia's atomic energy agency, Sergei Kiriyenko, said in an interview published Saturday that the top priority was to replace a reactor at the Leningrad power station in northwest Russia.

Second in line was construction of a new reactor at the Volgodonskoi power station in southern Russia, followed by construction of a new reactor at the Kalininskoi power station in the western province of Tver, Kiriyenko told the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper.

Russia is keen to expand its nuclear industry at home and abroad and has made bringing energy to developing countries a theme of its chairmanship of the G8 (Group of Eight) nations.

Moscow is building Iran's first nuclear power station at Bushehr, in the southwest of the country, amid international criticism of Iran's nuclear programme.

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