(Bloomberg) -- Sign up for our Middle East newsletter and follow us @middleeast for news on the region.

Changing the lead contractor for remaining work on Turkey’s $20 billion Akkuyu nuclear power plant won’t delay the project, according to Russia’s state-run Rosatom Corp.

Last week, Akkuyu Nukleer AS, a subsidiary of Rosatom, annulled an engineering, procurement and construction contract with Turkish builder IC Ictas and signed a deal with TSM Enerji Insaat.

“The construction of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant has entered a new stage: full-scale construction work is now underway at the sites of all four power units,” Rosatom’s press office said in an emailed response to Bloomberg on Sunday. 

Turkey is building the 4,800-megawatt plant near the Mediterranean port city of Mersin to cut its reliance on imported energy. It signed a deal with Russia in 2010 to construct the facility, and hopes to see the first of four reactors at Akkuyu operational in 2023. 

Senior Turkish officials had previously told Bloomberg that Rosatom had sent around $5 billion to the Turkey-based builder, with two other similar dollar transfers planned. Rosatom said “current transactions are significantly lower” than the figure provided by the Turkish officials.

At the first power unit, Rosatom is installing turbine building equipment and preparing for tests, Rosatom said on Sunday. Work at the other three units requires “specialized skills in nuclear construction to ensure quality work that meets construction and installation deadlines,” which led to the decision to change the main contractor, it said.

Agreements similar to those with IC Ictas “are being concluded” between the new contractor and the project’s subcontractors, Rosatom said. 

If the pricing mechanism between Turkey and Rosatom goes ahead, the Russian company would sell half of generated power at the pre-agreed 12.35 cents per kilowatt-hour and the other half at the market price. That rose to 18.6 cents a kilowatt-hour on Aug. 1 from 8.8 cents at the start of the year, according to market clearing price data from the government-brokered power market Epias. 

“Rosatom has foreseen and chosen this balanced approach in order to hedge against the risks of price changes,” its press office said when asked if the company is satisfied with the agreed pricing mechanism. 

Rising prices in Turkey is largely due to the lira’s depreciation against the dollar. The local currency has weakened 26% since the start of the year, the worst performance in emerging markets, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.