Türkiye seeks to deepen cooperation with Rosatom

Türkiye is keen to expand its cooperation with Russian nuclear company Rosatom in the Sinop Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) project, Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar has said.

Rosatom is currently building Türkiye's first nuclear power plant, Akkuyu, in the southern province of Mersin. Türkiye plans to construct a second nuclear power plant in the province of Sinop on the Black Sea coast and a third one in the Thrace region to meet its fast-growing energy demand.

Russia is interested in the Sinop project, said Bayraktar, who attended the international nuclear energy event ATOMEXPO-2024 in the Russian city of Sochi.

"We want to extend our partnership with Rosatom in Sinop," the minister added.

Other countries, such as China and South Korea, are also interested in taking part in nuclear energy projects in Türkiye, according to Bayraktar.

"There are negotiations with China regarding the nuclear power plant to be built in the Thrace region. We are hoping to finalize those talks by the end of this year and move on to the construction phase. Because this planned power plant needs to start generating power in the early 2030s," the minister said.

Türkiye aims to generate 20 gigawatts of electricity from nuclear power plants by 2050, Bayraktar noted.

"We need to build four reactors both in Sinop and the Thrace," he added.

In order the achieve this target, Türkiye plans to focus on small modular reactors with 5 gigawatts capacity over the next 20 to 30 years, according to the minister.

The construction of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant was launched in 2018.

The plant, which will have four VVER-1200 power reactors upon completion, will have a total installed capacity of 4,800 megawatts. It will produce 35...