Poland PM Tusk: May Delay Building of Nuclear Power Plant

By Marcin Sobczyk

WARSAW--Poland may take longer than previously thought to build a nuclear power plant because of changes in the European energy market, the country's prime minister said Tuesday.

The pace with which Poland will develop its nuclear power capability will depend on how the European energy market evolves, Donald Tusk said Tuesday.

State-controlled PGE Polska Grupa Energetyczna SA (PGE.WA) has been made the leader of the program to build Poland's first nuclear power plant. Amid falling electricity prices, Polish officials have said a final decision could be made in 2015, while PGE has said nuclear energy and shale gas, another Polish priority, were mutually exclusive.

"Our approach to nuclear energy hasn't changed, but we'll be flexible," he told a press conference. "I'm not ruling out that in the energy mix the place for nuclear power will be found at a more distant future than we planned earlier, mainly due to the increase of the importance of natural gas, including domestically produced gas, as a source of energy."

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