VVER

Türkiye is keen to expand its cooperation with Russian nuclear company Rosatom in the Sinop Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) project, Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar has said.

Energy Minister Rumen Radev affirmed Ukraine's ongoing interest in acquiring equipment for Bulgaria's Belene Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) during an inspection of Bulgaria's gas link construction with Serbia. Radev stated that Ukraine remains eager to procure the equipment and is willing to meet Bulgaria's proposed price.

The Akkuyu nuclear power plant that is being built in the southern province of Mersin, is giving a strong boost to the local economy, according to experts and a local business leader.

Since the start of the construction work, more than 500 new businesses have been registered with the Silifke Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said Nurettin Kaynak, its president.

Hungary will veto European Union sanctions against Russia affecting nuclear power, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told state radio on Friday, Reuters reported.

Ukraine has called on the EU to include Russia's state nuclear company Rosatom in the sanctions, but Hungary, home to a Russian-built nuclear power plant that it plans to expand with Rosatom's help, has blocked that.

Rosatom has announced that it manufactured and dispatched a shipment of nuclear fuel mock-ups for the first unit of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant.

The fuel dummies are shipped together with mock-ups of control rods and tools for incoming inspections of nuclear fuel, the Russian company said in a statement.

"The protection system has been raised to a higher level, I cannot reveal the details. We expect today to be fully prepared because everything can be expected from the Zelensky regime," said the representative of the regional administration, Vladimir Rogov.

Senior officials from the Energy and Natural Resources Ministry and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have been preparing a draft bill on Turkey's nuclear energy program.

Russia's largest lender Sberbank will provide loans of $800 million for the construction of Turkey's first nuclear power plant (NPP), Akkuyu, the bank announced on Nov. 17.

The seven-year loan will be provided to the project company Akkuyu Nuclear JSC, a subsidiary of Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom, according to Sberbank.

The construction works for the first nuclear power plant of Turkey is continuing as planned and its first unit will start operations in 2023, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Dönmez has said.

"In Akkuyu, things are running as planned," Dönmez said during a webinar organized by Sabancı Üniversity's Istanbul International Center for Energy and Climate (IICEC) yesterday.

The power unit of the Russian corporation Rosatom - JSC Rusatom Service and Kozloduy NPP have signed a contract for the modernization of the neutron flux control equipment (ACNP) for the Fifth and Sixth units of Kozloduy NPP after the open tender back in september 2019.