Erdoğan approves Turkey-Japan nuclear agreement

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has approved parliament's ratification of an intergovernmental agreement with Japan to build a nuclear power plant at Sinop, according to a statement on his website yesterday.

On 1 April, the country's parliament - the Turkish Grand National Assembly - ratified the agreement signed by the two countries in October 2013.

Ownership of the 4800 MWe plant will be split between a consortium of Japan's Mitsubishi and Itochu, and France's Areva and GDF Suez, with 65%, and Turkey's state-run power producer EUAS, with 35%. Areva and Mitsubishi will supply four Atmea 1 reactors.

Construction of the plant is expected to start in 2017, once an environmental impact assessment (EIA) has been approved.

The Sinop plant, on Turkey's Black Sea coast, will be the country's second nuclear power plant - the first is to be built at Akkuyu, on its Mediterranean coast, with Russia's Rosatom. Turkey's ministry of environment and urban planning late last year approved the EIA that Russian-owned JSC Akkuyu NPP submitted for that project. Construction work is expected to begin on the first of Akkuyu's four 1200 MWe Gidropress-designed AES-2006 VVER pressurized water reactors this year or next. The plant is being financed by Russia under a build-own-operate model, under an intergovernmental agreement signed by Turkey and Russia in 2010.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News