BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary is working to modify financing for a nuclear plant being built by Russia so it only starts repaying the loan once the two reactors begin supplying power, a Hungarian minister said, after an EU review of the plans contributed to delays in the project.
The existing 2 Gigawatt Paks plant, which accounts for half of Hungary's power capacity and meets a third of consumption, started up in the 1980s and will be decommissioned in the 2030s.
Hungary’s deal to award up to €12bn in nuclear power contracts to a Russian state-owned company is facing a growing threat from EU regulators who have the power to block the project.
A veto or prohibitive fine from Brussels would be a bruising setback for Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, who has made the project the centrepiece of his strategy to forge deeper political and economic ties with Russia, despite the ostracising of Moscow by the west over Ukraine.
(Armenian News, Yerevan, 19 November 2014) Armenia has approved a proposal for the extension of an Armenian-Russian intergovernmental agreement on cooperation extending the operation of the 2nd power unit of the Armenian nuclear-power plant (NPP). Armenia’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Yervan Zakharyan noted that, under the agreement, Russia is to extend a $270m export credit to Armenia.
Armenia said Sept. 13 it would extend the life of its ageing nuclear power plant, despite safety concerns over the Soviet-era facility in an active seismic zone.
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary unexpectedly cut off natural gas shipments to Ukraine on Thursday, days after getting assurances from Russian supplier Gazprom that it would get enough deliveries to fill up its own gas storage facilities.
Hungary had been sending an estimated 3 million cubic meters of natural gas a day to Ukraine, which has not received any from Russia since June. But FGSZ, Hungary's gas transmission firm, said it suspended the flow to Ukraine indefinitely to ensure pipeline capacity for incoming deliveries as it builds its own reserves.
Russia’s nuclear agency Rosatom has said that negotiations are still underway on expanding Ukraine’s Khmelnitsky Nuclear Power Plant despite reports this week that Ukraine had cancelled the project.
As tensions mounted in Ukraine yesterday, with its government announcing the capture of nine Russian soldiers on Ukrainian territory, a Rosatom representative told Russian news agency RIA Novosti that it had not received any notice about Ukraine’s pulling out of the construction project to build the third and fourth power units at the plant, and that both sides are continuing negotiations.
Westinghouse, the Japanese-US atomic group, is pressing the EU to introduce competition rules that will break eastern Europe’s dependence on Russian nuclear fuel.
While the crisis in Ukraine has focused attention on Europe’s vulnerability to a cut in supplies of gas from Russia, Westinghouse argues that Brussels must also respond to similar security risks posed by Moscow’s control of nuclear fuel in the eastern EU.
SOFIA, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Bulgaria, one of five EU states that depend totally on Russia for nuclear fuel, and Westinghouse Electric Company signed a shareholder agreement on Friday paving the way for construction of a new nuclear reactor estimated to cost $5 billion.
The deal, which still requires the approval of Bulgaria's next government, will help the Balkan country reduce its energy dependence on Russia at a time of increased tensions between Moscow and the European Union over Ukraine.
The EU has 18 Russian-designed nuclear power plants
Following the loss of the Malaysian airliner last week, European leaders are once again wrestling with the question of how to respond to Russia over its role in the Ukraine crisis.
They are reluctant to get tough, much more so than the United States.
The EU could easily end up doing itself a lot of economic harm, most obviously if Russia were to respond by turning down the gas.
ASTANA, May 29 (RIA Novosti) – Russia and Kazakhstan have signed a memorandum on the construction of a nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan during a Supreme Eurasian Economic Council session in Astana on Thursday.
The agreement was signed by nuclear corporations Rosatom and Kazatomprom in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev.
It's not just natural gas that keeps Ukraine under Russia's thumb. Almost all the fuel for Ukraine's 15 nuclear reactors comes from Russia, too.
But just as Ukraine is struggling to diversify away from Russian natural gas, it is also eager to break Moscow's virtual monopoly over its nuclear fuel.
Pennsylvania-based Westinghouse Electric Co. told various media outlets this week it will renew a contract with Ukraine's Energoatom that will extend and expand its flow of nuclear fuel to the struggling nation. The deal is valued at $100 million.
