Romania notified the European Commission for the approval of an individual state aid of 62 million lei to save the National Uranium Company (CNU), given that this company is unable to continue its operational activity, according to a draft of an emergency ordinance initiated by the Ministry of Energy.
“The Ministry of Energy is authorized to grant a rescue aid in the form of a loan in two tranches in the amount of 62.000 thousand lei for a period of six months to the National Uranium Company SA, which has major financial and economic difficulties, at its request. The rescue aid is intended to cover the National Uranium Company’s necessary liquidity, for covering the current minimum expenditures to support the activities for a period of 6 months in terms of nuclear safety and environment, and to allow an analysis on the circumstances that led to its acute difficulties and development of a restructuring plan to address them adequately”, reads the draft of the ordinance.
The loan will be granted – after the approval by the European Commission will have been issued – in two installments: 47,2 million lei and 14,8 million lei. The money will come from the budgetary reserve funds, available to the Government.
CNU has as main activity exploiting the deposits of uranium ore, processing the results from the operation, obtaining the technical concentrated uranium octoxide uranium (U3O8) and refining. CNU has technical and professional competence to conduct mining activities on resources / reserves of domestic uranium.
“Based on this restructuring plan, the Ministry of Energy, at the request of the National Uranium Company SA, extends the period of the loan, according to the restructuring plan, under the same conditions of interest and guarantees, in an addendum to the loan agreement, until the date of approval of the restructuring plan by the European Commission. In case of failure in meeting the provisions regarding the notification of the restructuring plan, the Romanian state will present to the European Commission a liquidation plan”, reads the cited document.
This May, the Minister of Energy Victor Grigorescu said that the government will do its best to maintain the Romanian full nuclear cycle and announced that CNU intends to open new uranium mines.