Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday that the Candu bid for Turkish nuclear plants, led by Montreal-based AtkinsRéalis, now has “good chances” of success, a sharp change from a year ago, as Canada and Türkiye deepen energy ties under a new strategic partnership signed in Ankara.
The Candu bid for Turkish nuclear plants
Speaking to reporters in Istanbul on Friday, after meetings with Turkish business leaders in sectors including energy, aerospace and critical minerals, Carney said the AtkinsRéalis bid has moved from long shot to serious contender in the span of a year.
“If you would have asked us a year ago how we would have pegged the chances, they would have been very low. Now there are good chances. There’s real competition, of course,” he said.
Carney credited the strength of the Candu technology, AtkinsRéalis’s partnerships with Turkish businesses, including on the construction side, and the ability to build out elements of the supply chain in Türkiye. Together, he said, they make “quite a compelling proposition.”
He was also clear about the limits of his role. Contract decisions are made business to business, he said, and the final call rests with the Turkish government.
A decision could come before the end of the year
Carney said negotiations are intensifying and Ankara could decide before the end of the year. No contract value has been announced, and no agreement has been signed.
The Canadian push runs on two tracks. AtkinsRéalis chief executive Ian Edwards said in a LinkedIn post that the company will carry out a feasibility study to advance the potential construction of Candu reactors at Sinop, on Türkiye’s Black Sea coast, the site of the country’s planned second nuclear plant. Carney was also asked in Istanbul about Canadian involvement in a third plant, planned for the Thrace region in Türkiye’s northwest, where Ankara has also held talks with South Korea, Russia, China and Japan.
The groundwork predates this week’s visit. In March, Candu Energy, the AtkinsRéalis subsidiary that markets the technology, signed a memorandum of understanding with Türkiye Nuclear Energy Company to assess deploying Candu reactors in the country.
Energy at the centre of a new strategic partnership
The nuclear pitch landed a day after Carney and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signed a strategic partnership in Ankara, upgrading relations between the two NATO allies during the first bilateral visit to Türkiye by a Canadian prime minister.
The partnership covers trade and investment, defence, security and energy. On Thursday, the two countries agreed to significantly increase collaboration across the energy sector, including liquefied natural gas, civil nuclear energy and renewables. Negotiators will hold a first round of free trade talks in Ankara next month, and Export Development Canada and Türk Eximbank signed a deal to back joint projects in third countries. Erdoğan set a goal of raising annual trade from about $3 billion to $5 billion, and eventually $10 billion.
Türkiye is working to diversify its energy suppliers. Its first nuclear plant, at Akkuyu on the Mediterranean coast, is being built by Russia’s Rosatom under a $20-billion accord signed in 2010, and Rosatom said last week it expects a start-up at the site by year’s end. The second plant is planned for Sinop and the third for Thrace.
A Canadian technology with an export record to rebuild
Candu — short for Canada Deuterium Uranium — is a pressurized heavy water reactor design developed in Canada. It runs on natural, unenriched uranium and can be refuelled while operating. The intellectual property belongs to the Canadian government, held by Crown corporation Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., and AtkinsRéalis is the technology’s exclusive licensee and manufacturer.
Candu reactors already operate in Romania, China, Argentina and South Korea, alongside the fleet in Canada. Export momentum stalled for years, though: Romania’s 2024 decision to buy two more Candu units for its Cernavodă plant marked the first new Candu construction ordered since 2007. Ottawa’s nuclear strategy aims to sell more Candu reactors abroad, which is what makes Türkiye — a country building out an entire nuclear program — such a consequential test.
Carney made the nuclear comments on a trip that also produced headlines on another front: in Istanbul, he dismissed U.S. claims of Canadian interference in American politics as having “no merit,” a separate dispute running alongside the trade mission.
