Negotiations kick off for the joint venture that will construct Romania’s 3rd, 4th nuclear reactors

Electrabel-Belgium, Enel-Italy, Iberdrola-Spain, CEZ-the Czech Republic, Arcelor-Mittal Romania and RWE-Germany submitted their offers, wanting to join the race along with a Romanian partner.

Romania’s Nuclearelectrica, the country’s nuclear power plant operator, said negotiations will last for 60 days. All the companies could be included in the project or some may withdraw during negotiations, the same people said

The two nuclear units should be ready by 2014 and 2015. The construction requires investments exceeding 2.2 billion euros and both reactors will have an installed power of 720MW.

The government approved in mid-June the selection strategy to complete the third and fourth reactors and assigned the Ministry of Finance to establish measures for applying the strategy. The company picked to carry out the works will have to be registered in Romania by the beginning of 2008.

The winning investors will have to come up with a 30 percent cash contribution to the construction. A new company will be established and registered in Romania by the contractors. Several shareholders will be part of the company’s General Shareholders Assembly and none of them will hold a majority stake in the units.