Having spent five years combining its nuclear power, engineering and research enterprises into the single entity of Rosatom, the Russian government now sees privatisation of the firm as part of a plan for industrial modernisation.
Rosatom is just one of several vertically integrated state holding companies Russia established to "discourage the decline of the more intellectual sectors of national industry" in the post-Soviet era, wrote Vladimir Putin in the Vedomosti newspaper on 30 January.
PARIS/FRANKFURT, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Power groups GDF Suez, Iberdrola and RWE said on Thursday they were pulling out of a multi-billion dollar nuclear project in Romania, confirming an earlier report by Reuters.
"Economic and market-related uncertainties surrounding this project, related for the most part to the present financial crisis, are not reconcilable now with the capital requirements of a new nuclear power project," the groups said in a joint statement.
Russia is proposing to build a high-voltage electricity cable from Kaliningrad to Germany across the Baltic Sea to export power produced from a newly to be built nuclear power plant. The cable would be laid alongside the last part of the gas pipeline Nordstream that Gazprom is building together with western partners and that will be used to transport gas direct from Russia to Germany across the Baltic Sea. The electricity cable would similarly bypass third countries, in this case Poland. A representative from the German Ministry of Economic Affairs says he does not expect Germany to be willing to acquiesce to the plan. ‘I cannot imagine that the German public will want to import nuclear power (“Atomstrom”) from Russia’, he says.
The main electricity producer in Slovakia, Slovenske Elektrarne (SE), which is 66% owned by Italian power giant Enel and 34% owned by the state, has completed its EUR 500 million investment into upgrading two units of the V2 power plant in Jaslovske Bohunice.
Italian utilities company Enel will decide on its involvement in the nuclear project company, set up by the Romanian state with major European partners to complete the 3rd and the 4th reactors of Cernavoda nuclear plant, when the reforms in the power generation sector become predictable. The decision depends critically on the alteration of the market regulations besides the setting up of the two state power companies in the generation sector, Enel officials told Bloomberg agency quoted by local media.
Czech power firm ČEZ will quit a joint venture to build two units at Romania's sole nuclear power plant by December and seek other low-risk projects in the region, a company official was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
Romania, whose state-owned nuclear power firm already has two 706 megawatt reactors at its plant in Cernavodă, accounting for roughly 18 percent of the country's power, had planned plans to build two more in partnership with six foreign firms.
Enel and Inter RAO have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for cooperation in
future nuclear projects and building new technical innovation, energy efficiency, distribution, both in Russia and Eastern Europe.
The companies plan to develop a new nuclear plant in Kaliningrad, which is said to be the first public-private partnership in the nuclear sector in Russia.
Albania's government approved on Wednesday the creation of the country´s National Atomic Agency, an institution that will supervise of development of nuclear projects.
Earlier Prime Minister Sali Berisha had announced that the government was looking at the possibility of constructing a nuclear power plant.
MOSCOW, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Italy's power firm Enel is interested in joining a project to build a nuclear power station in Russia's region of Kaliningrad, the project leader Inter RAO said on Thursday. Inter RAO's Chief Executive Yevgeny Dod told reporters his company was also talking to other potential foreign partners.
The Albanian Prime Minister, Sali Berisha, has proposed constructing a nuclear power plant in Albania. The Berlusconi government in Italy is the first strategic partner to receive his request for cooperation. Experts and analysts interpret the proposal as a joke; environmentalists again suggest alternative sources.
