BUCHAREST (Romania), October 25 (SeeNews) – Six companies filed binding bids to build reactors three and four at Romania's sole nuclear power plant at Cernavoda, the plant's operator Nuclearelectrica said on Thursday.
The candidates are Belgium's Electrabel, Italy's Enel, Spain's Iberdola, the Czech CEZ, Luxembourg-based Arcelor-Mittal, and Germany's RWE, state-owned Nuclearelectrica said in a statement. The offers will be analysed and the shortlisted bidders will be named by the end of November.
The Romanian government said in June that the construction of reactors three and four is planned to be performed by private companies which will be supervised by Nuclearelectrica. The launch of the two new reactors is scheduled for 2014 and 2015. The cost of reactors three and four will be 2.4 billion euro ($3.4 billion) under estimates of the Economy and Finance Ministry.
The Cernavoda power plant, located in southeastern Romania, has two reactors of 700 megawatts each. The first one was brought on-line in 1996 and the second one went commercial earlier this month. The power plant can host five CANDU 6-type reactors, designed and built by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL).
The first pair of reactors will enable Cernavoda to generate close to 18% of the nation's electricity output, up from the some 10% it had generated with one reactor.
($ = 0.7014 euro)