The Export-Import Bank of the United States (US Exim Bank), the country's official export credit agency, has issued two letters of interest to finance, for over US$3bn, the completion of the 1.5 GW phase 2 of the Cernavodă nuclear power plant, located in Constanța county, southeastern Romania.
One of the letters of interest concerns a first loan of US$50m for the second phase pre-project engineering services, which would begin in the second quarter of 2023. The second letter refers to a US$3bn loan that will cover the US contribution for the completion of the project as a whole, notably the engineering and project management services.
The Cernavodă nuclear plant currently comprises two operational CANDU reactors (units 1 and 2, 650 MW each, commissioned in 1996 and 2007 respectively) and two planned reactors (units 3 and 4, 750 MW each), which are already partially built but whose construction has been suspended since 1992. In July 2020, Romania launched a tender for a new feasibility study to complete units 3 and 4, which could be commissioned in 2031. In its Integrated National Plan for Energy and Climate Change released in 2021, Romania also plans for the refurbishment of the existing reactors (unit 1 in 2027-2028 and unit 2 after 2037) to extend their operating life by 30 years.
At the end of 2021, nuclear represented around 7% of Romania’s installed capacity with 1.4 GW and 19% of the country’s power generation with 11.3 TWh.
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