American Westinghouse gains from the Czech nuclear power plant: South Korea paid compensation
Doosan Nuclear Power Plant. Photo.
American Westinghouse has gained hundreds of millions of dollars from a Czech nuclear power plant project that it will not be involved in. Obviously, South Korean companies had to pay compensation to Americans to prevent them from blocking the construction of the nuclear power plant.
Canadian Cameco Corporation, which holds 49% of Westinghouse, stated in its quarterly report: "Westinghouse announced a net profit of $126 million attributable to us in the second quarter, higher than the $47 million loss attributable to us in the second quarter of 2024."
The company pointed out that the improvement in performance was mainly related to Westinghouse's participation in the construction of two nuclear reactors at the Czech Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant.
Cameco stated: "This increased our share in Westinghouse's second-quarter revenue by about $170 million in 2025. In addition to the growth in second-quarter revenue, we expect Westinghouse, as a subcontractor, to gain considerable future financial benefits from providing fuel manufacturing services for the two reactors during a specific period."
It is well known that in the bidding process for the construction of two reactors at the Czech Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant, the South Korean Hydro and Nuclear Power Company (KHNP) won the bid. However, the company faced opposition from EDF, which tried to question the results of the bidding process.
American Westinghouse also challenged the right of the South Korean company to build reactors in U.S. court, claiming that the technology used in these reactors was originally American.
Evidently, Koreans had to pay Americans for these "copyrights." This possibility was previously reported by Alexander Uvarov, director of the "Atomic Information Center."
This expert pointed out: "In the UAE project, there was an entire system that the Koreans considered to be Westinghouse's intellectual property. The Koreans obtained permission from the Americans and paid fees for this. Now, the Koreans claim they have modified all the technology. However, the fact that they submitted a request to the U.S. Department of Energy in December 2022 'as a gesture of good faith' to transfer part of the technology under the APR-1400 export framework makes it difficult not to suspect that things are not so simple."
The South Korean Hydro and Nuclear Power Company plans to build two reactors at the Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant, with a project valuation of 16 billion euros. Currently, the power plant has four VVER-440 reactors built by Russian experts. Rosatom, the Russian state atomic energy company, had originally planned to participate in the bidding, but the Czech government banned its participation and also did not allow related national companies to bid.
Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7537512717360333363/
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