ECONOMY Minister Pavol Pavlis criticised the process of third and fourth bloc of Mochovce nuclear power plant constructions saying he is not satisfied with the realisation and projecting of the construction, during his visit to Mochovce on November 3, the TASR newswire reported.
“I express my great, great dissatisfaction with how the completion of the current project is going,” Minister Pavlis said, as quoted by the SITA newswire. “In connection with the completion of the third and fourth units at Mochovce, as of today the Economy Ministry will breath the Italians on the necks every day. I have the right to say this with regard to what I saw today.”
On the other hand, he was tight-lipped about the stance of the Slovak Government during the Extraordinary General Meeting of Slovenské Elektrárne (SE), the operator of nuclear power stations in Slovakia, scheduled for November 7. It should discuss inter alia the demand of Enel, SE’s main shareholder with a 66-percent of shares, and whether it is willing to increase its budget on the construction of those two blocks by an alleged €800 million, according to the TASR newswire.
It is therefore not yet certain whether representatives of the government would raise their hand for the budget increase.
“We still have four days to bring certain things to a conclusion,” Pavlis said, as quoted by SITA. “There are still some open issues that are a priority for us. I believe that we will manage to close the open questions.”
Slovenské Elektrárne officially began with the completion of Mochovce on November 3, 2008. During the peak period, 5,200 people from 150 supplier companies worked on the project. Slovak companies accounted for 54 percent of the work. They were followed by the Czech companies with a share of 21 percent, and companies from Italy with 10 percent. Installed capacity of the two new nuclear units at Mochovce will be about a thousand megawatts, according to SITA.
Owners of shares in Slovenske Elektrarne are the Slovak Ministry of Economy, which controls a 34 percent stake and the Italian company Enel SpA, which has a 66 percent share. The Italian investor entered Slovenske Elektrarne in April 2006. SE is the largest electricity producer in Slovakia and the second largest in Central and Eastern Europe. It operates 5,737 megawatts of installed capacity. It is an operator of two nuclear power plants, two thermal power plants, and 34 hydroelectric power plants.
Source: TASR, SITA
Compiled by Roman Cuprik from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
