Turkey’s energy minister highlighted last week problems in a tender won by a Russian company to build the country’s first nuclear power plant amid media reports that Ankara could cancel the project.
A consortium led by Atomstroyexport, Russia’s state nuclear giant, was the only bidder in the tender last year and the government – unhappy with the financial terms – is yet to decide whether to go ahead. “If such a high price has emerged with just one company... if we are unhappy with the price, it means there is a deficiency,” the Anatolia news agency quoted the minister, Taner Yildiz, as saying in the southern city of Antalya.
The project, estimated to cost about 21 billion dollars (14.9 billion euros), envisages the construction of four nuclear reactors with a total capacity of 4,800 megawatts at Akkuyu, in the Mediterranean province of Mersin. Yildiz, who was only appointed energy minister in May, said he would have chosen a different strategy to attract more bidders if he had held the portfolio at the time of the tender.
(KATHIMERINI, 08/20/2009)