Erdoğan: Turkey wants to start Sinop nuclear plant construction

ISTANBUL

Turkey wants to start construction of its planned second nuclear plant in the Black Sea province of Sinop as soon as possible and has already started working on a planned third nuclear plant, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on July 10. 

Speaking at the World Petroleum Congress in Istanbul, Erdoğan said Ankara was ready to evaluate new projects, including gas projects in the East Mediterranean and Iraq.

“We have accelerated our investments in nuclear energy. Once our first and second nuclear plants, in Mersin’s Akkuyu and Sinop, become fully operational, they will meet a minimum of 10 percent of our total energy needs. We have recently further strengthened our Akkuyu project with Russia by adding our local capital to the project,” he said. 

“We also want to start construction of our second nuclear power plan as soon as possible. We discussed this issue with Japanese Prime Minister [Shinzo] Abe during the G-20 Summit,” he added, also noting that work had started for a planned third nuclear power plant. 

Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy conglomerate Rosatom agreed to sell a 49 percent stake in the giant nuclear project in southern Turkey to Turkish investors in a preliminary agreement on June 19 on the sidelines of a nuclear conference in Moscow.

The stake in the Akkuyu project was sold for an undisclosed sum to the three Turkish companies Cengiz, Kolin and Kalyon - dubbed “CKK” as a consortium - which are already active in construction and energy sectors. Each of these companies will have an equal stake. 

A Franco-Japanese consortium is due to build Turkey’s second nuclear plant in Sinop.