South Korean investors have expressed an interest in developing a nuclear project in Romania, the Romanian Energy Ministry said on Friday (2nd September).
BKB sent a letter of intent to Romanian minister Ion Ariton "expressing a firm interest" in developing reactors 3 and 4 at the Cernavodă Nuclear Power Plant.
The company said it would like to acquire shares in EnergoNuclear, a consortium set up to develop the two units that will have a total installed capacity of 1.4GW.
Earlier this year, Germany`s RWE, France`s GDF SUEZ, Czech incumbent ČEZ and Spain`s Iberdrola withdrew from the project that was due for completion by 2017 (see EDEM 21 January 2011).
RWE, ČEZ and GDF SUEZ each held a 9.15% stake, while Iberdrola held 6.2% .
The withdrawal left Nuclearelectrica, sole stakeholder in the EnergoNuclear consortium, to shoulder the €4bn bill for construction of units 3 and 4.
Since the withdrawal of the European companies, Chinese investors have expressed an interest in the Cernavodă project.
In a separate development, China`s Sinohydro is interested in developing a €1bn ­hydro plant in northern Romania, the Ministry of Energy quoted in the local press.
The Tarniţa-Lăpuşteşti unit will be the largest hydro load-balancing plant in Romania. The plant will have four turbines of 250MW each.
(THE ICIS HEREN REPORTS - EDEM 15168 / 2 September 2011)