Constructors not keen on Turkey tender
25 September 2008
[Nuclear.Ru, 24 September; Today's Zaman, 25 September] Six envelopes were submitted by the 24 September tender deadline to build Turkey's first nuclear power plant but only one - from a consortium led by Russian reactor constructor AtomStroyExport - actually contained a bid. Some 13 companies had previously requested tender specifications and according to press reports, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), Franco-Belgian Suez Tractebel, Unit Investment NV of the Netherlands, and two Turkish companies (Hattat Holding and Ak Enerji) all submitted letters declining to tender. Turkish plans ambitiously call for the new plant at the Aukkuyu site to be on line by the middle of the next decade. The AtomStroyExport bid, for two 1200 MWe AES-2006 reactors, will now be evaluated before referral to the Turkish Atomic Energy Agency (TAEK) for approval, although the absence of other bids is leading commentators to question whether yet again the process of tendering for a Turkish nuclear plant is doomed to fail. A previous tendering process launched in the 1990s was ultimately abandoned in 2000.