Energy - Romania, Nuclear Power

The natural gas’ crisis made the authorities go back to projects that were forgotten or postponed for wealthier or diplomatically better times. Money hunting is the priority, while solving other kinds of difficulties seems less dramatic.

The so-called (east) European of Gazprom natural gas delivery turned some great projects in priorities again. The most important seem to be the initiation of two new hydroelectric power plants on the Danube and the 3 and 4 Units of the Nuclear Plant in Cernavoda (NPC).

THE INVESTMENT. The making of the 3rd Unit in Cernavoda has been in the energetic strategy of Romania for a long time, but the 4th Unit has been taken into consideration seriously only in the last decade, with the occasion of the recent "Gazprom fever".

"As soon as we receive the sketch of the feasibility plan, we will start the procedures that will finalize with the initiation of the project company, which is to build the 3 and 4 units from Cernavoda, according to a public-private partnership for turn-key plants", Codrut Seres, the Minister of Economy and Commerce, stated for us yesterday. The multi-purpose company will be made of Transelectrica and the selected partners, their allotments being lands, cash capital or equipments.

"By building both the objectives at once, we reduce some costs", Seres added. According to estimations in the field, the investment for the 2 Unit, which is to be finalized, would reach 900 million US Dollars. The cost of a simultaneous building of the two new groups could reach 1.5 billion USD, of a total of 6.85 billion USD, which is the cost for the modernization of the entire energetic sector between 2006 and 2015.

ASSEMBLING. The sketch of the feasibility plan for the 3 and 4 Units, made by Deloite&Touche, should be delivered not much after the 15th of January, and the shareholders of the project company might be established by the middle of June.

After the end of the discussions for the formation of the project company, the details of the financing of the investments scheme will be known, and this refers to the social capital and credit ratios from the partners and creditors. The negotiation margin for the social capital and the credit lines is not so big. The joint stock has to have a certain dimension to prove the creditors the force and the engagement of the company, and the credit lines for investments are sufficiently standardized in such a way not to allow many modifications. The discussions will be more laborious for the way in which the Nuclearelectrica partners will cash the profits in accordance to their investment ratios: money or energy.

THE CANDIDATES. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL, Canada) and Ansaldo Energia (Italy), the contractors of the first two NPC units, as well as the Italians from ENEL, the owners of Electrica Dobrogea and Electrica Banat Crisana, would like to take part in the new investments. LNM holding and Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power have also been accepted in a so-called first list of candidates, which remains open. The Romanian officials have also invited Korean company Doosan to get involved. The Czech group CEZ and the German one, EnBW, don’t say a definite no. They both compete for Electrica Muntenia Sud, the pearl of the sales subsidiaries of the Electrica Group, the money of which are the target of the Romanian authorities when talking about potential partners.

The works could start in 2006, and should be finalized in 2012, their complexity implying the reaching of other goals as well. These are the plant with Bunkie station in Tarnita-Lapustesti, which is to use during the night some of the energy produced by the 2 and 3 groups of the Cernavoda NPC, in order to assure the equilibrium of the energetic system.

FIVE REACTORS = 40% OF THE PRODUCED ENERGY. The Cernavoda plant has five Canadian CANDU 6 reactors with an installed power of approximately 700 MW each. The first reactor started functioning in 1996 and supplies 10% of the country’s need. The second one could deliver its first megawatts in the autumn. The first two units could support 18%-19% of the country’s consumption, and the third and the fourth one would get the Romanian energetic resources close to the 40% margin. The electricity in Cernavoda is the second in the table of the cheapest sources, with approximately 34 USD/MWh. By the fission of a gram of Uranium 235, one can obtain as much energy as from using two tones of petrol. The Romanian energy depends on the imports in ratio of 28% and will get to 40% until 2015. The electrical energy consumption will increase with 1.7% between 2005 and 2008. Now, we consume almost 50,000 MWh per year, obtained with an installed power of 18,000 MW.