Turkey to reach understanding soon with partners to construct second, third NPPs - energy minister

SOCHI. March 25 (Interfax) - Turkey plans to reach an understanding soon with the partners with whom the country will construct the new nuclear power plants in the Sinop and Trakya provinces, respectively, Turkey's Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar told reporters on the sidelines of the Atomexpo 2024 forum.

Bayraktar said that Turkey has progressed seriously in developing the Sinop NPP project, and talks are ongoing with Rosatom state nuclear energy corporation and other interested parties.

Bayraktar said that Turkey would evaluate the cost of the work, amount of localization, and the creation of new jobs when reaching the decision to select partners to construct the second and third NPPs.

Rosatom is building Akkuyu, Turkey's first NPP, in the Mersin Province. The Akkuyu NPP will comprise four power units with capacity of 1200 MW each, and the project cost to construct the NPP is around $22 billion. The actual launch of the NPP is scheduled for 2024.

As previously reported, Turkey has been considering projects to construct two additional NPPs in the Sinop and Trakya provinces, respectively.

Rosatom CEO Alexei Likhachev on the sidelines of Russian Energy Week 2023 said that the company was ready to offer to construct, among other matters, the company's small NPPs for Turkey.