(Bloomberg) -- Russia’s state-owned Rosatom Corp. is “ahead” in a bid to build Turkey’s second nuclear power plant, in the latest sign of Ankara’s growing energy ties with Moscow.
Rosatom already has experience in Turkey’s nuclear sector, starting commissioning work at the nation’s first atomic plant in Akkuyu in April. That makes it well placed to also build the Sinop plant, Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said in an interview.
“This is the main reason why they’re naturally keen and in this sense I and many others think they’re ahead,” he said. Rosatom is “a company that’s invested in Turkey and has gained experience.”
South Korea is the other country that’s known to have held talks on the planned four-reactor facility on the Black Sea coast. The Sinop plant could involve a joint venture between the public and private sectors, and licensing is expected to take two or three years, Bayraktar said.
His comments underline the strategic relationship between Turkey and the Kremlin at a time when Ankara’s NATO allies are cutting reliance on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. Russia is already Turkey’s main supplier of crude oil and natural gas, and its involvement in nuclear energy there will give it a foothold in the electricity market supplying some 85 million people.
Turkey currently aims to add over 20 gigawatts of nuclear capacity to its energy mix by 2050. But it could reach that target in the 2040s if the Sinop site and another planned nuclear plant in the Thrace region are expanded to their maximum capacity of eight reactors each, Bayraktar said.
Negotiations are ongoing with China on the Thrace project and with the US on small modular reactors, according to Bayraktar. US nuclear technology giant Westinghouse Electric Co. is interested in both small and conventional nuclear projects in Turkey, he said, with executives from the company scheduled to visit Turkey later this month.
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