ITALY’s Enel is looking at ways to finance construction of nuclear power plants in Italy beginning in 2013, with possible bond issues in the cards, Enel Chief Executive Fulvio Conti said on July 14, during the visit of the Italian Minister of Economic Development, Claudio Scajola, to Mochovce.
“There are several means of financing,” Conti told a news conference in Slovakia. “We have had good experience with share issues and we are in a strong position in terms of budget. We are also considering selling bonds to broaden the financing possibilities.”
Enel could also use its own cash to be accumulated by 2013 when Italy aims to start construction on its first nuclear plants.
Italy plans to return to nuclear energy production which it abandoned after a public referendum in 1987 following the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine.
But industry experts say the global financial crisis has made it difficult to raise funds for expensive and long-term projects like nuclear plants, especially for Enel, the most indebted utility in Europe, after it took over Spain’s Endesa. Conti admitted that Italy may not generate its first nuclear power until 2018, five years after the targeted start of the construction projects, Reuters wrote.
Slovakia's dominant energy producer Slovenské Elektrárne (SE), in which Enel holds 66 percent ownership, has to conclude more than 300 contracts within the completion of the third and fourth reactors of the Mochovce Nuclear Power Plant (EMO), said Giancarlo Aquilanti, the director of the EMO 3 and 4 projects at his meeting with Scajola in Mochovce, the SITA newswire wrote.
Enel will complete the 3rd and 4th reactor blocks of the Mochovce nuclear power plant in Nitra region within the planned date, said Aquilanti. The 3rd block should be launched into operation in 2012 and the fourth one, one year later.
