US Exim Bank to finance construction of nuclear reactors in Romania

The US Export–Import Bank said it intends to provide USD 3 billion for a project for two additional reactors in Romania’s Cernavodă nuclear power plant.

Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă announced at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP27 that a third of the required funds for units 3 and 4 in the Cernavodă nuclear power plant would be provided by the United States Export–Import Bank. The preparatory phase will be completed by the end of March, he said.

The US Exim Bank issued letters of intent for USD 50 million for the second phase and USD 3 billion for the construction of the two reactors, the prime minister revealed at the event in Egypt. The plan is to implement the second phase in the third quarter of 2025 and build the units in 2030, Ciucă said.

Decarbonization isn’t possible without nuclear energy, Minister of Energy Virgil Popescu said.

The two country’s partnership was established two years ago, when the US Exim Bank expressed interest in financing major energy projects in Romania with USD 7 billion. With the deal, the government in Bucharest formally canceled an earlier agreement with the China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN).

The two units in Cernavodă are scheduled to come online in 2030, Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă said

The Cernavodă nuclear power plant operates under state-owned Nuclearelectrica. A contract was signed for the preparatory stage last November with Candu Energy, a subsidiary of SNC-Lavalin from Canada, through Romania’s project firm EnergoNuclear.

In addition, Nuclearelectrica intends to deploy US-based NuScale’s small modular reactor (SMR) technology for a 462 nuclear power plant on the site of a former coal plant.