Turkish firms eyes partnership in 1st

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

Akkuyu NGS, the Russian company that is constructing Turkey’s first planned nuclear plant, has been considering offers from Turkish companies for a partnership on the atomic power generator, General Manager Alexander Superfin said yesterday.

Superfin said they received four or five serious offers from Turkey and that they had been having talks to choose the best offer. “I think that we will take concrete steps by the first half of next year. We will have had the expected offers and maybe [will have] arrived at the stage of signing a deal,” he said.

Russian atomic energy corporation Rosatom was selected to build and operate Turkey’s first nuclear plant in the southern province of Mersin in 2010 in an investment worth around $20 billion. The plant will be made with four reactors and will have a total installed power of 4,800 megawatts (mW). Akkuyu NGS, the subsidiary of Russia’s Rosatom, has been waiting for an expected environmental assessment report (ÇED) on the project.

Superfin said the project would be financed by the Russian public budget. They have not received any serious offers to consider from other countries except Turkey, he added.

Superfin said they had been conducting research and calculations on earthquakes in the region. On Oct. 23 a 4.5-magnitude earthquake struck in the Mediterranean Sea, shaking Mersin.

“Our project is designed as the most durable and safest against the greatest earthquake that can happen in the region,” he said, adding that they had drawn lessons from the Fukushima disaster and designed their project accordingly.

Akkuyu NGS submitted the report for the nuclear plant in Akkuyu to the Environment Ministry on July 9 for an assessment. The report was sent back to Akkuyu NGS on July 15 by the ministry, which said it had deficiencies in form and content and should be further developed in all aspects.

As the construction of the nuclear power plant in Akkuyu cannot be started without the environmental impact report, the process will last longer than the company’s schedule, which had planned to begin operations by 2019, officials said July 30.