China is moving closer to Romania’s nuclear programme

On 17 October 2014 the state-run company Nuclearelectrica, which operates Romania's only functioning nuclear power plant, Cernavoda, chose the Chinese company, China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), to be the strategic investor in the project to expand the power plant. CGN was the sole participant in the tender and as it has been announced it will control 51% of the shares in a future project company which will be responsible for both the construction and the management of two new blocks. The Romanian project of the expansion of the Cernavoda plant, which supplies approximately 20% of domestically produced electricity, has under development since 2002 and it envisages the use of the Canadian CANDU technology of pressurised heavy water reactors. The companies which previously established the consortium with Nuclearelectrica (Enel, CEZ, GDF Suez, RWE, Iberdrola, ArcelorMittal) have withdrawn from the project due to the economic crisis. Bucharest has been striving to attract new investors since 2011, above all by holding intensive talks with Beijing.