Romania's energy minister contemplates setting up hydro-nuclear holding

Romania's acting minister of energy, Virgil Popescu, likely to keep his position in the next Government, announced that he is contemplating the idea of setting up a holding company to include the largest and most profitable electricity producers in the country, the state companies Nuclearelectrica and Hidroelectrica. He mentioned this scenario at his hearing in Parliament, Profit.ro reported.

"We have been thinking about this for a long time, we also discussed the idea with the management of Hidroelectrica and with the management of Nuclearelectrica. A big player on the market that can expand outside Romania, on the regional market, like MOL or CEZ, expanded abroad, why wouldn't we do the same? Why wouldn't we dare to expand on the regional electricity market?" said Popescu.

Setting up such a holding is not included in the Ruling Strategy of the PNL-PSD-UDMR coalition, though. But the idea of creating an energy "national champion" by merging several state-controlled energy companies has been circulating in public for many years.

(Photo source: Gov.ro)