Russia bids to build nuclear power station in Poland

Earlier this month, Sergei Kirienko, Rosatom's president, noted that the nuclear power industry suffered a huge setback following the damage to the reactor in Fukushima in Japan during the earthquake. “Competition has become much tougher [between nuclear power companies] but we have doubled our order book.”

Rosatom, which accounts for 20 percent of new reactors being constructed globally, joins the French Areva, the US-based Westinghouse and the Japanese-American GE Hitachi in bidding for the contract to build Poland's first nuclear power station, scheduled to come on line by 2020, writes the Rzeczpospolita daily.

Last Friday, Zarnowiec, Choczewo and Gaski were confirmed as candidate locations for the power plant Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE), the country's largest power producing company and the key investor in the project.

Rostatom was to form an alliance with Germany's Siemens, but that has fallen through after Chancellor Merkel announced a halt to the nuclear programme there following the Fukushima disaster. (pg)