Romania advances with nuclear plant expansion plan

Romania's Energy Ministry and Canada's Natural Resources Department signed last week a memorandum for mutual cooperation, in the context of Canada providing the know-how for the planned expansion of the nuclear plant operated at Cernavoda by the Romanian state-controlled company Nuclearelectrica, G4media.ro reported.

The memorandum was signed in Bucharest by energy minister Virgil Popescu and Canadian Ambassador to Romania Annick Goulet on behalf of Canadian Minister of Mineral Resources Seamus O'Regan Jr. in the presence of Romanian prime minister Florin Citu.

Several days earlier, a delegation of US companies headed by the Department of Energy deputy secretary for nuclear energy Kathryn D. Huff attended an event organised by Nuclearelectrica in the light of continuing the memorandum signed in Washington in October 2020 and recently ratified by the Romanian parliament, for the joint project of the nuclear plant expansion.

France is the third partner Romania will have in the project initiated by the signing of the October 2020 memorandum for the civil nuclear cooperation between Romania and the United States.

Romanian nuclear industry's association Romatom estimates at 25%-40% the share Romanian companies could contribute to the engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning of the USD 8 bln project, according to Economica.net.

The construction works on the site of the 3rd and 4th nuclear units, each of them with a net capacity of 700MW, may start in 2024.

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