29 Mar (NucNet): Russia has submitted all the documentation needed to obtain a licence for construction of Turkey’s first commercial nuclear power station at Akkuyu, the head of nuclear state corporation Rosatom told reporters.
Alexei Likhachev said on 28 Mach 2018 that Turkey is aiming to begin commercial operation of the first unit in 2023.
Mr Likhachev also said the sale of a 49% stake in Akkuyu Nuklear, the joint stock company charged with developing the project, will be completed in 2019.
State news agency Tass quoted Mr Likhachev as saying the probability of closing the sale is low this year, but it is likely to take place next year.
Earlier this month Rosatom said negotiations with potential investors should not delay construction of Turkey’s first nuclear power station.
Rosatom, which is supplying the reactor technology for the station, was responding to media reports that Akkuyu is unlikely to begin operation by 2023 because Rosatom has yet to find local partners.
Rosatom said last month it was in talks with Turkish state-owned power producer EUAS after a deal with a consortium of three large Turkish industrial holding companies collapsed.
In June 2017, Rosatom agreed preliminarily to sell a 49% stake in Akkuyu Nuklear to the three companies – Cengiz Holding , Kolin İnşaat Turizm Sanayi ve Ticaret, and Kalyon İnşaat.
According to Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu’s news agency, the three companies have now pulled out because of failing to agree on the final commercial terms with the Russian side.
“Rosatom categorically rejects speculation that any changes to the composition of the local ownership structure in the Akkuyu project have any bearing on the timetable of its implementation,” Rosatom said in a statement emailed to NucNet on 22 March 2018.
The Akkuyu nuclear power station is to be built near Mersin on Turkey’s southern Mediterranean coast for €20bn under an intergovernmental contract signed in 2010.
The station will have four 1,200-MW VVER plants with the first phase of construction seeing the completion of the first two units.
