July 7 (SeeNews) - South Korean investment fund DS Private Equity (DSPE) will invest 75 million euro ($81.6 million) in the second phase of the front-end engineering and design (FEED) study related to the development of a small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear power plant in Romania, the Romanian energy ministry said.
To this end, DSPE signed an agreement with Romanian nuclear power plant operator Nuclearelectrica [BSE:SNN] and electricity and natural gas supplier Nova Power & Gas, the shareholders of RoPower, which is the project company developing the SMR project, the energy ministry said in a press release on Wednesday.
“Nuclearelectrica welcomes the financial support granted by DSPE […] as an example of international mobilsation and cooperation for the SMR project in Romania, the second country after the USA to implement the innovative technology of the company's small modular reactor American NuScale,” Nuclearelectrica said in a separate press release on Wednesday.
The amount to be invested by DSPE is part of the multinational public-private partners’ commitment from the U.S., Japan, South Korea and the UAE to provide up to $275 million (252.6 million euro) for the SMR power plant project located in Doicesti, southern Romania. The investment will contribute to the financing of the SMR plant starting with the second phase of the FEED project, which consists of a series of activities including site analysis, project scheduling, budgeting, as well as licensing and regulation activities.
In January, U.S.-based Nuscale signed a contract with RoPower for the first phase of the FEED work for the deployment of the first SMR power plant in Europe.
Founded in 2007, Nova Power & Gas is part of Romania's infrastructure specialist group E-Infra. Nuclearelectrica is the operator of Romania's sole nuclear power plant (NPP) Cernavoda.
Nuclearelectrica shares traded flat at 45.5 lei ($10/9.18 euro) as at 1315 CET on Friday on the Bucharest Stock Exchange.
($=0.9187 euro)
SN Nuclearelectrica SA is among the biggest companies in SEE. You can download our SEE Top 100 ranking
here or subscribe to our free Top 100 newsletter
here