Turkey’s nuclear plans spiked by lawsuit

A court ruling throws out the government’s RFP saying it violated the terms of its own offer

The Agence France-Presse wire service reports that a Turkish court has blocked a 2008 contract award for a new nuclear power plant won by a Russian company.

The Union of Turkish Engineers' and Architects' Chambers, or TMMOB, said in a statement it filed the lawsuit because it claimed the government violated the terms of its own RFP by awarding the contract to a single bidder.

Other bidders dropped out of the process and did not submit contract proposals after the government dismissed their appeals for more time to resolve issues related to revenue, indemnification, and protection of intellectual property. It is the latest in a series of setbacks that have thrown the tender into turmoil. [complete coverage]

A consortium led by Atomstroyexport, the Russian state nuclear export agency was the only bidder in the tender to build and operate the plant. After months of wrangling over price, the Turkish government has still not made a decision to award the contract.

The engineers' group declared victory saying that with the court ruling the RFP for the new nuclear reactors was declared invalid. Mehmet Soganci, chairman of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects, which brought the case against the tender, said,

"The Council of State has decided to suspend three articles in the tender process.”

Soganci is no stranger to making his views heard and impacting government policy. He is a featured speaker on environmental and social issues at forums involving Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.

Battle over price now superseded by a lawsuit

While the legal standing of the RFP has been in question for some time, the contractual battle has been over the price of electricity to be generated by the new nuclear power station. Despite several downward changes, energy analysts in Turkey said the price of $0.15/KwHr was still too high taking into account it would be five-to-ten years before the plant entered revenue service.

The consortium, including Russia's Inter Rao and Turkey's Park Teknik, later revised its offer to supply electricity, but the national government in Ankara said the new offer was still too high.

The project had plans to build four nuclear reactors, at 1,200 MW each, with a total capacity of 4,800 MW at Akkuyu, in the Mediterranean province of Mersin.

The planned reactor has been fiercely opposed by environmentalists who argue that Akkuyu is close to a seismic fault line. They cite a powerful earthquake that killed more than 140 people in the neighboring province of Adana in 1998.

Earlier this year, Greenpeace protestors were arrested in Ankara after draping anti-nuclear banners over the front of government offices.

The national government as recently as last month was counting its chickens before they were hatched. A debate broke out over how to handle the revenue from the reactors once built, which would make Turkey a regional exporter of electricity.

There was no indication from the government how it planned to respond to the court ruling.

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