By Jung Sung-ki
President Lee Myung-bak and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will sit down together today to hammer out a deal to build a nuclear plant at Sinop in northern Turkey.
Seoul and Ankara have held negotiations over the deal but failed to narrow differences on the price, shareholdings, investment volume and other key conditions.
“A final decision on whether or not to sign an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) will be made during the Lee-Erdogan meeting,” a government official said. “We can’t anticipate a final result now since the two sides should narrow any differences on the deal.”
South Korea signed a memorandum of understanding with Turkey in June to cooperate on nuclear power projects, which was seen as helping Seoul win the order to build the plant at Sinop.
Since then, the Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) has been in talks with Turkey’s Ministry of Energy and state power producer Elektrik Uretim.
According to government sources, KEPCO aims for a 40 percent stake in the plant and would contribute to the financing.
If there is no agreement with Seoul, Turkey plans to start assessing other bids from Europe, Japan and other countries, Turkey’s Energy Minister Taner Yildiz told Reuters ahead of the Nov. 11 to 12 G20 Seoul Summit.
Turkey wants to build two nuclear plants to reduce its dependence on imported energy and cover a looming power shortfall.
The country targets about 10,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity installed by 2023.
The Sinop plant would have four reactors with a total capacity of 5,600 megawatts and is slated to start operations in 2019.
The total cost of the plant is unclear, though analysts have estimated it could reach $10 billion.
The other nuclear plant is planned to be built at Akkuyu in southern Turkey by Russian firms. That plant is slated to be in operation by 2018 and is estimated to cost $20 billion.