Major row brewing over Olkiluoto 3 delays

TVO says that it is “extremely disappointed” that the consortium building the EPR project at Olkiluoto has not been able to accelerate work at the site and reduce delays.

The Finnish utility has announced that the Areva-Siemens consortium – the turnkey supplier of the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant – has confirmed that the facility will not be completed until 2012. Late last year the Areva-Siemens consortium initiated arbitration proceedings over the delays and related costs surrounding the project.

“Areva-Siemens has projected completion in June 2012,” says TVO in a statement. “TVO is extremely disappointed that the consortium has not, regardless of its responsibility as turnkey supplier and its earlier promises, been able to complete the works on time or to mitigate its delays through effective acceleration measures.”

The 1600MW reactor is the first to be built in Western Europe in a decade and was originally scheduled to be commissioned in 2009. Construction on the €3 billion project began in 2005 but has suffered a number of delays.

The Areva-Siemens consortium alleges that some of the delays have been caused by TVO’s document handling and approval process. TVO has already initiated a process to claim compensation for losses and costs incurred by the delays.

“The delay in the project causes extra work and cost for TVO,” said TVO President and CEO Jarmo Tanhua. “TVO claims from the consortium for compensation for TVO's resulting costs and losses.

“As in the past, TVO will continue to work with the consortium to get the project completed as soon as possible without compromising safety or quality.”

TVO says that the reactor pressure vessel for Olkiluoto 3 arrived at the site on 4 January 2009. The 526 ton unit was manufactured at Japan Steel Works and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan and began its journey by sea to Finland in late October 2008.

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