Russia’s largest lender Sberbank will provide a $400m loan for the construction of the Akkuyu nuclear power station in Turkey, the bank said on Wednesday.
The seven-year loan will be provided to a subsidiary of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation building the plant.
The seven-year loan will be provided to a subsidiary of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation building the plant.
Rosatom confirmed the loan and said that before it was agreed financing for Akkuyu came from its own funds and from Russia’s federal budget.
The Akkuyu nuclear power station is being 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 units, with the first expected to come online in 2023. In June, Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan said it was important to finish the first reactor by that date.
In March Rosatom announced that first concrete had been poured for the foundation slab at Unit 1.
The operation included the pouring of 17,000 cubic metres of self-compacting concrete into the nuclear island foundation, a statement said.
