Visaginas nuclear power plant concession contract was presented during the meeting of the Government on Monday, announced Energy Minister Arvydas Sekmokas, delfi.lt reports on 26 March.
“Today a concession contract on the Visaginas Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) was presented to the Government. It is planned to conclude the negotiations this week. The coordinated and initialized concession contract will be given to the Government for overview, and then to the Parliament for approval, after that the contract will be signed,” – said the Minister.
According to him, after the signing of the concession contract, the work on VNPP’s project will continue in two periods.
The funding of the first 12-month period will amount to 83 million U.S. dollars, the second 18-month period – 200 million dollars. After that it is expected to get final decision on the investment.
“The investment will be done if the final decision would be to invest, - he says. – And that will be no later than March 31, 2015. Afterwards, construction of VNPP will take place. The start of plant’s operation is expected to be in 2020 – 2022.
More flexibility to the date of the start is left, because there might arise questions regarding prices. Previously it was announced that VNPP would start in 2020.
In addition, the Minister stated that there were “open possibilities for more investors to join the project.”
The minister said that it is planned to borrow on favorable conditions from the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation JBIC and Japan’s foreign credit insurance agency “Nexis” , U.S. Export-Import Bank Ex-Im, the European Atomic Energy community “Euroatom“ and the European Investment Bank. Some financing would be supplied from Lithuania as well.
It is estimated that the total cost of the project should not exceed 5 billion euros or 17 billion litas.
Translated by Lena Ancevičienė
