Moorside plant in Cumbria thrown a lifeline after majority owner Toshiba agrees to sell its stake
The boss of the company which is behind a planned 拢10bn nuclear power station in Cumbria has warned a South Korean firm鈥檚 bid to take over Toshiba鈥檚 stake in the business is still not a done deal.
Yesterday, the Japanese giant, which has been struggling with huge losses on two atomic plants in the US, said it had agreed to sell NuGen, the company that has been set up to develop the 拢10bn Moorside project, to Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) 鈥� the largest electric utility in South Korea.
But NuGen chief executive Tom Samson warned that while the news was 鈥渁 significant milestone鈥�, it was not 鈥測et the conclusion of the transaction. There is still more to be done in the weeks and months ahead to bring that to fruition.鈥�
And he added: 鈥淲e鈥檙e not going to provide a running commentary in the weeks ahead of what those discussions are going to be but we will continue to work tirelessly to bring these discussions to a successful conclusion so that we can move forward with delivering the Moorside project as soon as possible.鈥�
KEPCO still has to get approval from the South Korean government 鈥� which owns just over 51% of the business 鈥� to go ahead with the deal.
Toshiba鈥檚 problems in the US triggered the resignation of the company鈥檚 chairman Shigenori Shiga back in February and led it to look at pulling out of Moorside after saying it would not be involved in the plant鈥檚 construction.
The troubled US plants, which Toshiba said had racked up losses of $6bn, are the first to be developed in the country for 30 years and use the same AP1000 model reactors that Toshiba had planned to use in the Moorside project.
The site of the proposed Moorside plant is near Sellafield, which was the location of the world鈥檚 first large scale, commercial nuclear power station.
NuGen is designed to deliver 3.8 GW of electricity per annum into the National Grid.
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