ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP): Turkey on Thursday delayed the opening of a tender for the construction of the country's first nuclear power plant.
The energy ministry was waiting for a government audit agency to comment on the tender's technical details before potential bidders could be invited, state-run media said. Officials said earlier but it was not clear how long the delay would be.
LONDON, Feb 21 (Reuters) - British Energy's Torness-2 nuclear power reactor stopped just after midnight on Thursday and the shutdown was unplanned, a spokeswoman for the company said.
"We are working on the restart plan," she said on Thursday. "But we will do some additional maintenance work while the unit is off."
She would not say what had caused the 625-MW reactor, one of two at the power plant in Scotland, to stop. (Reporting by Daniel Fineren)
PARIS, Feb 20 (Reuters) - EDF said on Wednesday its nuclear output availability rate dropped by 3.4 percentage points to 80.2 percent in 2007 due to heavy works on its steam generators and low production levels at its Paluel plant.
Judah Grunstein | 13 Feb 2008
PARIS -- When Nicolas Sarkozy took office last May, everyone expected him to be an active president. Known for his relentless pace and tireless work ethic, Sarkozy had promised to reinvigorate France's foreign policy, which had suffered from an accumulation of failure and fatigue under his predecessor, Jacques Chirac. To that end, Sarkozy has not disappointed. In a little over eight months as president, he has visited 25 countries on four continents, strengthening historic bonds (America), nurturing new ones (China, India), and above all raising France's profile around the world.
ISTANBUL (Thomson Financial) - French nuclear giant Areva said it is interested in a planned tender for the construction of Turkey's first nuclear power plant.
'We are going to meet the (Turkish) energy minister (Hilmi Guler) and we will clearly indicate to him that the Areva company is interested,' Gabriel Saltarelli, head of the company's commercial affairs in Central and Eastern Europe, told reporters.
Recent rumours of a takeover or break-up of British Energy are exaggerated.
The UK nuclear generator, with an enterprise value of £5bn, is still in effect controlled by the government. In return for taking on the long-term liabilities associated with decommissioning nuclear plants, the state has a call on BE's net cash flows - 65 per cent from 2004 to 2007, and now 35 per cent. It can convert this right into equity at any point and could potentially block unwanted interest. Whether it would, though, is a moot point. While some potential suitors - Russia's Gazprom, for example - would be politically less appealing than others, the UK government appears to feel sanguine about foreign ownership even of such strategic assets.
British Energy remains in talks with 10 potential partners for the construction of nuclear reactors and hopes to sign at least one deal in the next few months.
The nuclear energy group reported third-quarter results on Wednesday, which were hit by the unplanned closure of its Hartelpool and Heysham reactors.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday began taking public comments and fielding requests for a public hearing on plans by Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions to import 20,000 tons of waste from Italian nuclear plant cleanups.
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- British Energy Group Plc, the U.K.'s biggest power producer, said fiscal third-quarter profit fell 18 percent, weighed down by the cost of unscheduled reactor shutdowns and lower electricity prices.
ESSEN, Germany (Thomson Financial) - RWE AG said it is restarting block A of its Biblis nuclear plant after being shut down for one and a half years due to technical faults.
