Fortum announces participation in Fennovoima construction

Fortum Corp. announced on Wednesday that it will purchase a 6.6-percent share in the Fennovoima nuclear plant construction project.

“With our participation, Fennovoima project will be able to utilize Fortum’s wide expertise of the nuclear sector and our technical know-how," Interim Fortum CEO and CFO Timo Karttinen said. "At the same time, Fortum will be able to continue its good long term cooperation with Rosatom and develop further its own expertise along with the project. Our target has not been to build a greenfield site for nuclear power in Finland as we already have two own nuclear power units in Loviisa and Fortum holds a share in Olkiluoto units. Our decision enables, however, Fennovoima project to proceed within the timeline the Finnish government has set to the project.”

The Fennovomia project is located on a peninsula in Finland of the same name.

According to the company's announcement one hold-up of the nuclear plant's construction is the negotiations between itself, Gazprom and Rosatom of Russia on the ownership of the Territorial Generating Company, TGC-1. In a Barents Observer article, it states that Fortum had not reached a conclusion on the company and as a result could not decide to take its originally intended 15 percent share in the nuclear project.

Fortum currently owns 29.5 percent of TGC-1 and is seeking to hold the majority share.