British contractor signs deal for first Polish nuclear plant

PGE EJ1, the newly established nuclear project operator set up by the Polish PGE energy company, signed an agreement with AMEC of Britain for them to be the contract engineer for the first Polish nuclear power station, PGE said on Friday.
The contract covers at least 10 years and is worth 400 million U.S. dollars netto. Its first stage will last till PGE EJ1 closes an integrated tender for the design, technology and financing of the nuclear station and is worth 65 million dollars.
The construction of the first generating bloc in the plant should start in 2020, according to government and PGE plans, and should be commissioned by 2024. The plant will have 3,000 megawatts capacity after completion.
It is estimated that 220 Polish firms are interested in the nuclear plant project and 58 of them have experience in this field, said Zbigniew Kubacki, head of the nuclear energy department at the Ministry of Economy, who took part in an expert debate on the project organized by the Polish press agency on Friday.
The 58 firms are already parts of supply chains for nuclear energy in Europe, he explained.
The Warsaw Technical University educates engineers for nuclear energy plants and Poland already has clusters of firms getting ready for participating in the project, he added.
Alstom Power Polska's director for sales and marketing Miroslaw Kowalik noted that many elements of atomic power plants were manufactured in Poland, for instance by Alstom's Elblag facility.
Thirty percent of all nuclear power stations in the world had turbines made by Alstom, he added.
The expert debate was organised after three large Polish concerns, Tauron, Enea and KGHM, signed a contract with PGE to acquire shares in PGE EJ1. Under the contract signed on Sept. 3, each of the three firms will acquire a 10 percent stake in PGE EJ1.