The U.S. Export-Import Bank has approved a $98-million loan for the second phase of an early engineering and design study by Fluor Corp. for a six-module, 462-MW small modular nuclear reactor in Romania—the country's first—at the site of a former coal power plant in Doicești near Bucharest that will use technology of U.S.-based developer NuScale Power Corp. Each module would be 77 MW.

Fluor, a NuScale majority investor, was awarded the phase two FEED contract in July by Romanian state-owned developer RoPower, in a joint announcement by the U.S. Energy Dept. and Romania's Energy Ministry. The contract award was not disclosed, but its completion will enable the project to reach final investment decision and start construction, with commercial deployment aimed for 2029.