The Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in the southern namesake city is in danger of being shut down because the US economic blockade on Iran's key sectors, namely banking, has made it hard to transfer money to purchase equipment, parts and fuel, a deputy at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said.
“The station is likely to stop operating this year as we struggle to keep the unit running due to the sanctions,” Mahmoud Jafari was quoted as saying by ISNA.
“Volatility in foreign exchange rates and the US restrictions have made it difficult to meet the reactor’s operational and maintenance needs pay the Russian contractors,” he said.
According to the official, the AEOI has not yet fully paid contractors who carried out last year's technical inspections and restoration.
Before steep fluctuations in the forex market in 2018, generating each kilowatt-hour of electricity cost 1,300 rials (1.4 cents) and was sold to the Energy Ministry for 500 rials (about 0.5 cents). In 2018 one US dollar fetched 90,000 rials. Now it sells for 250,000 rials.
“Power now is produced at 4,000 rials (2 cents) but is sold at the previous price.”
Under the tight economic conditions and deficit spending by the government, it seems paying for the plant's expenses in the current fiscal would be difficult.
The plant was built by Russia and is operational since 2011. It is one of the oldest civilian nuclear power plants in the Middle East but is not regarded by the United Nations atomic watchdog as a proliferation threat.
Close to 98% of domestics electricity is produced from fossil fuel.
Russia signed an agreement in 2019 to build two more 1-gigawatt nuclear reactors on the site of the existing reactor in a deal estimated to cost $10 billion.
"The plant generated 6 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in the past 12 months," the official said, noting that the output helped cut CO2 emissions by 6 million tons.
Iran’s sole nuclear reactor has generated over 50 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity since 2011. The plant accounts for 1 gigawatt of total power generation capacity at 65GW.
