Argentina’s financial crisis has led the country to establish an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the reduction of its fiscal deficit. According to the terms of IMF’s recent US$44bn programme, the South American country will reach fiscal balance by 2025 if, among other initiatives, billions of dollars in energy subsidies are to be cut.
This outlook will make it difficult to fund large projects such as the Atucha III nuclear power plant, to be built in Lima, Buenos Aires province, close to the Atucha I (362MW) and II (745MW) stations.
For this reason, Argentina now intends the 1.2GW plant to be fully financed by China. This would also prevent new postponements on the project’s development from happening.
As of February 2022, state operator Nucleoeléctrica Argentina firmed a deal with China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) stating that 85% of the project’s value would come from Chinese investment.
As soon as construction work begins, Atucha III will take 99 months to be completed.
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