7 Feb (NucNet): Three Turkish companies, which were negotiating with Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom on buying a stake in Turkey’s planned Akkuyu nuclear power station, have pulled out of the negotiation process, the state-run Anadolu news agency quoted Turkish company officials as saying.
Six Rosatom subsidiaries, including Rusatom Energy International and Rosenergoatom, together own 100% of the Akkuyu project.
In June 2017, Rosatom agreed preliminarily to sell a 49% stake in Akkuyu Nuklear, the joint stock company charged with developing the project, to three large Turkish industrial holding companies – Cengiz Holding , Kolin İnşaat Turizm Sanayi ve Ticaret, and Kalyon İnşaat.
According to Anadolu’s unnamed sources, the three companies have now pulled out of the arrangement because of failing to agree on the final commercial terms with the Russian side.
However, Russian state-owned Tass news agency quoted Rusatom Energy International spokesman Roman Dyukarev as saying that only two companies in the consortium – Kolin and Kalyon – have quit the project.
Mr Dyukarev told Tass that Rosatom is still negotiating with a number of other potential investors, including the Turkish state-owned energy company Elektrik Üretim. He said the Russian side expects investors to join the project in the course of 2018, which is a “good” time in view of the ongoing construction licensing process.
None of the parties involved have so far officially commented on the reports.
The Akkuyu nuclear power station is to be built near Mersin on Turkey’s southern Mediterranean coast for €20bn ($24bn) under an intergovernmental contract signed in 2010. The station will have four 1,200-MW VVER units expected to come online in 2023.
