South Korea’s Kepco chosen as preferred bidder for UK’s Moorside nuclear project

• 6 years ago (2017-12-07)
• David Flin

Europe 1089 Nuclear 659

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South Korea’s Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco) has won preferred bidder status for Toshiba’s NuGen, the business developing the Moorside nuclear project in Cumbria, UK. Kepco beat China General Nuclear (CGN) to win preferred bidder status. Sources said that it was Kepco’s track record of building its reactors in the United Arab Emirates on time and on budget that helped it win the deal.

Kepco has been in negotiations with Toshiba for months, and the announcement gives some stability to the project. Negotiations are expected to continue over the next few months, and a deal is set to be signed in the first half of 2018. A Kepco spokesman said that the company had not yet received Government approval, or generic design assessment (GDA), for its APR-1400 nuclear reactor design.

Westinghouse, Toshiba’s nuclear arm, had won regulatory approval to build its reactors at the site, but filed for bankruptcy in March, causing France’s Engie to back out, and the project’s future to be thrown into doubt.

Tom Samson, Chief Executive of NuGen, said: “When we are in a partnership with different technologies and shareholders, it is inevitable that that would change schedules. We will have a new plan which we will need to create with any new owner, and that will take us beyond 2025.”

There has been speculation that the UK Government will follow up this announcement with a series of pledges to support the nuclear industry.