Turkey to Fund Akkuyu NPP with Russian Gas Payments

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Tianjin that Russia and Turkey have tested a mechanism whereby payments to "Gazprom" for gas supplied to Turkey will remain in Turkey.

The money paid for Russian gas will be directed to the construction of the "Akkuyu" nuclear power plant, which "Rosatom" has been building in Turkey since 2018.

For this, contractual payments from the Turkish state importer Botas will be used, which has two long-term contracts with "Gazprom": 16 billion cubic meters of gas per year via the "Blue Stream" pipeline and 5.75 billion cubic meters via the "TurkStream" pipeline.

"We have successfully completed the testing phase, which will allow us to meet the financial needs of 'Akkuyu' at the expense of Botas' gas payments," Erdoğan said, as reported by Reuters.

"Rosatom" has been unable to independently finance the construction of the $20 billion nuclear power plant. Due to sanctions, funds in the accounts of the state nuclear corporation have been frozen. In the summer, "Akkuyu" construction workers even organized a mass protest due to payment delays.

It should be recalled that the launch of the first power unit of the nuclear power plant was originally planned for 2023.

However, due to sanctions, the German concern Siemens refused to supply equipment for the project, as a result of which the completion of construction was postponed first to 2025, and then to 2026.