YEKATERINBURG, July 10. /TASS/. TVEL, an affiliate of the Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, plans to open an additive technologies center in Novouralsk (the Sverdlovsk Region) in 2020, Vice President of the company Ilya Galkin told reporters at the INNOPROM exhibition on Wednesday.

Additive production, also known as 3D printing, is an array of production methods based on adding material to a base in the form of a flat platform or an axle billet.

"The center of additive technologies in Novouralsk will appear next year. Our task is to make a really comprehensive product, an ecosystem, and therefore it is not so quick. Certainly, our plans are to open [the center] next year," Galkin said. "The only fully operable Russian printer is in Novouralsk," the vice president said.

TVEL plans to create many research and industrial centers, Galkin said. There is no exact program for their establishment but the company plans to work in Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Moscow, Sverdlovsk and Rostov Regions, he added. Research centers will be established in Siberia and industrial ones will be at other territories.