Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Tehran and Ankara have agreed on building a nuclear power plant in Turkey, which has been planning to create nuclear power for many years.

Alireza Kameli, Managing Director of the National Iranian Gas Export Company said on February 2 that Iran had signed a basic agreement with several Turkish companies to build a power plant in Turkey, Press TV reported.

Turkey has had plans for establishing nuclear power generation since 1970. Today, plans for nuclear power are among key goals of the country's economic policies.

Kameli said the agreement envisages the construction of a power plant in Turkey through joint investment of NIGEC and the National Iranian Oil Company– on behalf of the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum - with the Turkish companies.

“One way to diversify Iran’s gas export is to shift to electricity,” Kameli was quoted by the Persian-language newspaper Forsat-e Emrooz as saying. He added that is why Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum has decided to proceed with this project.

He further said an Iranian company named Ariyan Mahtab Gostar will determine the location of the power plant inside Turkey. Afterwards, the National Iranian Gas Company will start procedures to construct a pipeline from Iran to the designated location of the plant.

“Following talks with the Turkish companies, it has been agreed for Iran to supply the required gas of the project,” he said adding that the investor’s share of gas export revenue is calculated in proportion to gas price in each target market.

Kameli also noted that Iran expects the efficiency of the power plant to be above 50 percent so that it would be able to compete with international rivals. This, he said, comes as the efficiency of power plants in Iran is maximum 37 percent.

In 2011, Russian company Rosatom signed an agreement with the Turkish Energy Ministry to build and operate a nuclear power plant in Akkuyu located in the southern province of Mersin.

Taner Yıldız, Turkey’s Energy Minister said last October thatthe construction of the nuclear plant in Mersin will start in spring in 2015.

Meanwhile, construction of Turkey’s second planned nuclear plant to be built in the northern province of Sinop was assigned to a Japanese-French consortium.

Turkey also plans to build its third nuclear power plant with its own recourses. Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s Prime Minister said last October that the country plans to start building the third nuclear power plant with its own means by 2018-2019 after it has acquired quality human resources.

However, earlier it was reported that China would build the third plant, with U.S.-derived technology.

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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova

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