United States blacklisted China General Nuclear Power Corporation for “attempting to steal technology” (Representation)
Bucharest, Romania:
Washington’s Energy Ministry said on Friday that the United States would dislodge China from funding two new reactors at Romania’s only nuclear power plant.
Romanian Energy Minister Virgil Popescu and his US counterpart Dan Brouillette had initialed a “draft intergovernmental agreement to cooperate in the expansion and modernization” of Cernavoda in south-eastern Romania, the ministry said. US Energy in a statement.
Bucharest will have access to “American expertise and technology”, while a “multinational team” will take care of the construction of the new reactors and the renovation of one of the existing reactors, he added.
“We now have a large, clean American company, AECom, leading this $ 8 billion project, with the help of clean Romanian, Canadian and French companies,” Washington Ambassador to Romania Adrian Zuckerman said, during the signing ceremony.
The deal would “free” Romania from China’s “malignant influence”, Zuckerman said, adding that “the Communist Party’s control of all Chinese companies, domestically and abroad, poses a danger. existential”.
Bucharest broke its agreement with China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) on the two new reactors in June, amid growing suspicion of Chinese investments in Europe.
CGN had been the only company to bid when Bucharest launched a tender in 2014.
It has since been added to a blacklist of U.S. companies that Washington accuses of attempting to steal technology for military applications.
Romania then pledged to find a new partner among its EU or NATO allies for the Cernavoda project, which it has struggled for nearly a decade to start.
Six European companies – GDF Suez, Iberdrola, CEZ, RWE, Enel and ArcelorMittal – withdrew from the project one by one amid uncertainty about its future.
The plant’s two existing reactors together provide around 17% of Romania’s electricity supply.
(This story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
