Addressing a seminar in the northern city of Oulu on Thursday, Fennovoima’s director of Engineering and Construction, Timo Kallio, said that the company has not changed its plans or timetable despite the departure of German energy giant E.ON.
E.ON has held a 34-percent share in Fennovoima. In October, it announced plans to sell its stake by next spring as part of a general pullout from the Finnish market.
Kallio said that work is going on as usual at the firm’s headquarters in Helsinki and at the planned construction site on the Hanhikivi peninsula in Pyhäjoki, about 100km south-west of Oulu.
The company’s communications director, Maira Kettunen, pointed that the company itself cannot decide or comment on who its owners are. She declined to comment on suggestions that the French company Areva or Japan’s Hitachi might buy a share in Fennovoima.
In the past, Fennovoima has repeatedly cited E.ON’s ownership as proof of its know-how in nuclear power.
Minister for Economic Affairs Jyri Häkämies, who has championed the project, is leaving the government next week to head Finland's biggest industrial federation, the EK.