HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finnish consortium Fennovoima said on Monday it had terminated a contract with Russian state nuclear power supplier Rosatom for the delivery of a planned nuclear power plant in Finland.
The planned plant at Hanhikivi was commissioned by Fennovoima, a Finnish-Russian consortium, in which Finnish stakeholders, including Outokumpu, Fortum and SSAB, hold two-thirds of the shares and RAOS Voima, a subsidiary of Rosatom, the balance.
The future of the nuclear plant has been unclear since Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February. The conflict forced the Finnish government to rethink the project, whose final building permit was to be granted at the end of 2022.
Economic Affairs Minister Mika Lintila has repeatedly said it would now be “absolutely impossible” for the government to grant the permit.
Nevertheless, the Finnish unit of Rosatom, RAOS Project, in charge of the construction, insisted on continuing the project.
“Fennovoima’s decision is clear. There is reason to be satisfied with the owners’ decision. It would have been virtually impossible to proceed with the project,” Mika Lintila wrote on Twitter Monday, following Fennovoima’s announcement.
Fennovoima said the termination was due to significant delays and RAOS’ inability to complete the project.
“In recent years, significant supplier delays have continued and amplified. The war in Ukraine has heightened project risks that RAOS has been unable to prevent,” Fennovoima said in a statement.
Fennovoima said its cooperation with the RAOS project would end with immediate effect.
(Report Anne Kauranen, French version Kate Entringer and Augustin Turpin, edited by Jean-Michel Bélot)
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