Units 3 and 4 of Cernavodă delayed one more year

The creation of Units 3 and 4 of Cernavodă will be delayed about a year, since the state needs to select new private partners to replace the four that pulled out of the project, said Mircea Ursache, a member on the Board of Directors of "EnergoNuclear", the company in charge of the project. The project is already one yeah behind because the Tăriceanu government decided to make Nuclearelectrica a majority shareholder with 51% in the project, instead of the initial stake of 20%. Construction was supposed to begin this year, he said.

Mr. Ursache said: "My honest opinion is that the state will not be able to complete this project as it remains the majority shareholder and will need to contribute a large amount of capital to support the investment which is appraised at a total of 4 billion Euros. The state needs to keep a stake of 20% of the project, which represents the contribution in kind of Nuclearelectrica".

The official of the Board of Directors of "EnergoNuclear" estimates that the withdrawal of private investors from the project ("RWE", "GDF Suez", "Iberdrola", "CEZ") was caused by the dallying of the process for implementing the project. However, Mr. Ursache stressed the following: "Luckily, there are many investors interested in this project, being countries such as the US, Russia or Korea. We need to select those that show potential, and the state needs to show now, while it"s not too late, that it encourages and facilitates foreign investments in Romania. I for one, would ask that the companies which entered the race for the selection of the general contractor to make an offer of supplier credit and why not, to join the shareholder structure".

Another solution for securing easy financing would be for the state to invite the EBRD and the IFC to become shareholders of the project. Mircea Ursache also said that the commercial banks are interested in this in this type of investments, even though the recession barely shows any signs of ending, and the project company will not have a lot of trouble in securing the funding for the completion of the construction.

The Government recently approved the extension of the memorandum with foreign investors for the construction of the Units 3 and 4 of Cernavodă. The memorandum is valid until the end of the year and provides that "Nuclearelectrica" would acquire at the face value the shares owned by "RWE", "GDF Suez" and "Iberdrola" in "EnergoNuclear", the project company. As a result, the stake of "Nuclearelectrica" in "EnergoNuclear" would reach 85%.

Also, "Nuclearelectrica" will look for new partners in the project, after "RWE", "GDF Suez", "Iberdrola" and "CEZ" gave up on the investment. "Enel" and "Iberdrola", which remain involved in the project to build the 3rd and 4th reactor of Cernavodă, do not want to increase their stakes, but they will the opportunity to do so throughout the current year.

The Minister of the Economy has set up another draft government bill, by which it proposes that "Nuclearelectrica" keep a minority interest of 40% of "EnergoNuclear" and to sell the remaining 45% to several investors, without giving controlling interest to any of them. The decision of the state to have such an important interest in the project is surprising after, over the past two years, the ministers of the economy have been constantly talking about reducing the stake of "Nuclearelectrica" in the project from 51% to 20-25%, due to the lack of funds.