The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is now expected to help Kiev finance construction of two partly completed units at the Rovno and Khmelnitsky nuclear power plants, according to British Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Doug Henderson, following a visit to Ukraine. The cost of their construction is put at $1.2 billion. The bank is expected to agree to lend Ukraine $190 million to help complete the Khmelnitsky 2 and Rovno 4 reactors. This more than doubles the $80 million initially proposed by bank officials earlier this year, and constitutes the biggest single loan in the history of the EBRD.
This also follows the conclusions of a recent analysis of Ukraine’s proposal which broadly favoured the completion of the reactors as the the least-cost and least risky economic choice. The report was done for the Bank by Stone & Webster.
