BUDAPEST, April 20. /TASS/. The Hungarian government sees an outside chance that the general contractor in the construction of the Paks-2 NPP will not be Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom, but some kind of engineering company, Minister of the Hungarian Prime Minister's Office Gergely Gulyas told reporters on Thursday.
When asked about possible changes to the Paks-2 project and, in particular, whether "not Rosatom, but some kind of engineering company" would be considered as the contractor for it he replied: "Yes, as an example."
But he stressed that the amendments recently made by Hungary and Russia to the documents on the Paks-2 project with the participation of Rosatom do not change its main parameters, including the purpose, timing and cost. According to the head of the prime minister's office, they are "amendments of a technical nature."
On April 11, after a meeting in Moscow between Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Economic Relations Peter Szijjarto and Director General of Rosatom Alexey Likhachev, it was announced that the parties had agreed to amend the agreements on the construction and financing of the Paks-2 nuclear power plant. As Szijjarto explained at the time, this had to be done because a number of agreements on the project were signed back in 2014, and since then there have been significant "vital and technological changes." In accordance with EU regulations, the amendments will be submitted to the European Commission for approval.
About Paks 2 project
The Paks NPP, which was built with Soviet technologies, and which uses Russian nuclear fuel, provides half of all generated and one third of consumed electricity in Hungary. At present, four power units with VVER-440 reactors operate at the station built about 100 kilometers south of Budapest on the banks of the Danube. Currently, preparations are underway for the construction of two new power units designed by Rosatom. At the same time, preparations are underway for the construction of facilities as part of the second stage of the Rosatom project. Specifically, those new units are called Paks-2. The Hungarian government expects that after two new VVER-1200 nuclear reactors are commissioned, the plant's capacity will increase from its current levels of 2,000 MW to 4,400 MW.
As Szijjarto said earlier, Moscow confirmed it was ready to finance this project, which is estimated at 12.5 billion euros and which from the very beginning was supposed to be 80% funded by a Russian loan.
In October 2021, JSC Rusatom - Automated Control Systems (RASU, a subsidiary of Rosatom) and the Franco-German consortium Framatome SAS-Siemens AG signed an agreement in Moscow on the manufacture and commissioning of automated process control systems for two new power units of the Paks NPP. Earlier, as part of this project, a contract was signed for the manufacture of turbines by GE Hungary Kft, which is a Hungarian subsidiary of US company General Electric. With this in mind, the withdrawal of nuclear energy from EU sanctions is of particular importance for the Paks-2 project.