Western sanctions against Moscow over the Ukrainian conflict have not affected the operations of Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom executives told New Europe.
“On the existing projects we do feel some pressure in terms of availability of liquidity but it’s on a very minimal scale and largely all the bankers we talk to are very happy to finance our projects and we don’t feel much pressure,”Rusatom Overseas Deputy Director Vyacheslav Ivanov said on June 1 on the sidelines of the VII Atomexpo conference and exhibition in Moscow.
“Maybe some banks for their own reasons may step out of ‘the club’ but we have – like in the Finnish project itself – over a dozen of banks with their positive responses taking tickets of hundreds of millions of euros participating in a project with very competitive rates,” he said, referring to the Hanhikivi nuclear power plant project in Finland.
The Hanhikivi 1 construction project in Pyhäjoki in northern Finland is scheduled to start generating electricity by 2024.
Ivanov also noted that operations in Ukraine are not affected. “It’s on schedule. We haven’t had any interruptions in day-to-day operations with Ukraine,” he said.
This was echoed by Rosatom Deputy Director and Chief Finance Officer Nikolai Solomon. “We fulfill all our obligations according to these contracts with Ukraine. How the business might change from the Ukraine side as our clients it’s their decision but so far we don’t have any problem with Ukraine,” he told New Europe on the sidelines of the same conference.
Solomon said that with the exemption of Hungary Central Europe for Rosatom is not a target market based on forecasts of energy consumption. “But if somebody decides to replace their coal with nuclear we would be happy,” he said. A Hungarian-Russian deal foresees the building of two new 1,200 megawatt (MW) reactors at the Paks nuclear power station on the River Danube.
“Europe never was a focus for us in terms of new construction because Europe is more or less balanced in terms of electricity supply that’s why our discussions today were focused on emerging markets where consumption of electricity is much lower than demand,” Solomon said.
Hungary is important for sure, he said. “You see the situation is changing so quickly the governments are changed, all these sanctions we will never know how new governments will position themselves under the circumstances. I would say we would be happy to build anywhere around the world but it does not always depend on us,” he said.
“When we meet with our clients we’re trying to prove that our power stations, hence cost of electricity for our clients, in long term will be less than other generators and we are environmentally clean compared to coal or gas,” Solomon said.
“I will be happy with any new client or existing client in any country we work with so I don’t split our target markets – China or BRICS, Europe, etcetera,” he said.
Ivanov noted that a lot of BRICS countries were present at Atomexpo including countries from South America like Brazil. “We’re looking for a strategic fit and economics of these projects especially from outside because we’re largely after bigger projects where we invest in the equity projects and we’re looking forward to some returns in the future,” he said.
Ivanov said Rosatom is not looking to reduce Europe’s reliance on natural gas. “I wouldn’t say that we’re competing with gas and replacing the gas sources but obviously the nuclear power on a basis of electricity cost is the most efficient form of sustainable energy in the world so we’re looking for a number of projects in countries and a number of expansion options,” he said. “We are happy to offer our solutions to any country including the Balkans,” he said, referring to Bulgaria hiring a consortium led by Rosatom units Rosenergoatom and Rusatom Service andFrance’s EDF to carry out the upgrades for Unit 5 at the Kozloduy plant.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/sanctions-dont-squeeze-russias-nuclear-plans/