South Korea's KEPCO in talks on stake in UK nuclear project

By Susanna Twidale

LONDON (Reuters) - Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) is in negotiations to buy a stake in Toshiba's NuGen nuclear project in Britain, a KEPCO executive said on Wednesday.

"We are in negotiations with Toshiba to take some share (in the project)," Jong-hyuck Park, chief nuclear officer at state-owned KEPCO, said on the sidelines of an industry event in London.

If successful the South Korean firm would want to use its own nuclear reactor design for the British project, Park said.

Toshiba's nuclear arm Westinghouse was initially expected to provide the reactor and won regulatory approval for its technology earlier this year.

However, doubts about the future of the project in Moorside, northwest England, have been raised after Westinghouse went bankrupt and France's Engie pulled out.

Park said KEPCO would submit its reactor design for approval by Britain's nuclear regulator early next year, and that if a deal was struck with Toshiba and regulatory approval given, the plant could be in operation by 2027 or 2028.

Toshiba had targeted a 2025 start date and a gross capacity of up to 3.8 gigawatts.

New nuclear reactor technology in Britain must go through a generic design assessment (GDA), which takes around four years to complete.

Tom Samson, chief executive of NuGen, the venture set up by Toshiba and Engie to build the plant, said other companies were also interested in investing in the project.

"No decisions have been taken on ownership or technology," he said, on the sidelines of the same event in London.

(Reporting by Susanna Twidale; editing by Susan Fenton and Jason Neely)