Lithuanian nuclear power plant bid winner to be named this summer

Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius | Photo: rian

The winner of an international tender to build a new nuclear power plant in Lithuania will be announced in the next four months, Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said on Friday.

“By the middle of the year we will have the results,” Kubilius said.

The statement was made as Kubilius held energy talks with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at a government residence near Moscow.

Lithuania plans to build a new nuclear power plant in Visaginas in the east of the country as a replacement for the much-disputed Ignalina plant.

The new plant, due to be built by 2018 as part of a $3-4 billion joint project with Poland, Estonia and Latvia, will have increased power.

The Ignalina plant’s first unit was closed in December 2004 and the plant was completely shut down in late 2009 as part of an agreement on the Baltic state’s accession to the EU, which took place in May 2004.

The Ignalina plant is of a similar design to the power plant that exploded in 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine. The Soviet-era Ignalina power station provided about 70% of Lithuania’s electricity.

In late February, Russia started the construction of the two-unit Baltic Power Plant in its western exclave of Kaliningrad, in a bid to combat an increasing energy crisis in the region. The first unit is to go in full production in 2016, with the second to follow in 2018. | RIA Novosti

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