TOKYO -- Japanese trading house Itochu is pulling out of a nuclear power plant project in Turkey due to a surge in safety-related costs, casting uncertainty over the plant's future as well as the Japanese government's infrastructure export ambitions.
The project was agreed on by the Japanese and Turkish governments in 2013. A consortium including Itochu and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries had been conducting a feasibility study until March for the construction of a 4,500-megawatt plant in the city of Sinop on the Black Sea. But costs related to safety measures surged after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, and the estimated costs for the project ballooned to more than 5 trillion yen ($46.2 billion) from 2 trillion yen in 2013.
