Turkish Akkuyu NPP’s Special Status to Speed Up Construction

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Tuesday he believed that assigning the strategic investment status to Turkey’s Akkuyu nuclear power plant (NPP), to be built in cooperation with Russia, would speed up the construction.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said earlier in the day following a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Pution that Ankara was ready to provide the status of strategic investment to Akkuyu.

"Assigning [Akkuyu] the status of a strategic investment [suggests] that there will be special attitude from the authorities and from the investors in regard to this project. It will enable us to implement it with higher quality and faster," Novak told the Rossiya-24 television channel.

He noted that among other provisions, the new status would allow to attract investment on preferential terms, which is important in view that Akkuyu construction is set to cost some $20 billion.

Russia and Turkey signed an agreement to construct and operate Turkey’s first nuclear power plant at the Akkuyu site in the Turkish southern Mersin Province in May 2010. The plant is expected to produce about 35 billion kilowatt-hours per year.