Dukovany: KHNP drops Daewoo over a 663 million euro civils gap on a fixed-price nuclear deal

If this were my programme, I would ask KHNP for one document this week. I would want the civils price built up against the design it was priced on. Everything else at Dukovany follows from that page.

On 29 October 2026, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) ended its civils talks with Daewoo E&C and Doosan Enerbility. The contract in question is the construction package for the two new Dukovany units. KHNP had sought a cut of more than 10 percent from the consortium's bid. The Korea Herald reported that cut on the same day as worth over 1 trillion won, about 663 million euros. The gap sits one tier below the Czech client, inside the Korean supply chain, and it should be read there.

What broke at Dukovany

KHNP signed the main contract in June 2025. Its client is Elektrárna Dukovany II (EDU II), the ČEZ project company. The scope is two Korean APR1000 reactors. The headline price is 407 billion koruna, about 16.7 billion euros. Converted at the ECB reference rate of 6 November 2026.

Daewoo and Doosan had been KHNP's designated construction partners for years. The consortium submitted its construction unit prices in January 2024. KHNP tabled revised terms on 7 October 2026 and allowed about three weeks to review them. The consortium asked for more time. KHNP refused and walked away.

That matters because those unit prices were set against a basic design. A basic design fixes the layout and the systems. It does not yet fix the quantities that a builder actually pours, bends and welds.

Why a fixed price at the top meets a remeasured price below

Czech reporting by TZB-info and E15 describes the split plainly. KHNP wanted a fixed total price on the basic design. Daewoo wanted the price to follow the quantities in the detailed design. On a nuclear island that difference is very large.

Here is why. Concrete, reinforcement, embedded plates and pipe supports are settled late. Seismic and containment loads drive them, and those loads are confirmed during detailed design and licensing. A contractor pricing a lump sum on a basic design is pricing quantities that do not yet exist.

KHNP has no room above it. ČEZ chief executive Daniel Beneš spoke the day after the collapse. He said the main contract carries a fixed price, a fixed schedule and penalties. So KHNP cannot pass a quantity risk upward. The reason is simple. A prime contractor on a lump sum has two options. It closes the gap with its builder, or it funds the gap from its own margin.

Daewoo was asked to hold a lump-sum risk on quantities that only the designer can fix. Daewoo also says KHNP asked bidders to leave risk reserves out of their estimates. KHNP disputes that. The public record does not show which account is right.

Who carries the gap now

E15 put the construction contract at about 7.7 trillion won, roughly 5.1 billion euros. The consortium says KHNP's terms could have cost it about 2.8 trillion won, or 1.86 billion euros. That is more than a third of the package. No contractor signs that willingly, and no prime can force it without a fight.

EDU II contracts with KHNP alone. The Daewoo dispute therefore does not change the Czech price by itself. That happens because the main contract is back-to-back only in one direction. KHNP owes EDU II the fixed price whatever its own builder costs.

The Czech fixed price is protected exactly as far as KHNP is able and willing to absorb the gap. The weak point is change control. Owner-instructed design changes are priced as variations under any EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contract. A prime that is losing money on civils will read every owner instruction as a variation.

Doosan's separate equipment contract, worth about 5.6 trillion won (3.7 billion euros), is unaffected. That creates its own interface risk. The equipment keeps its own delivery dates. Civils readiness decides when it can be installed, so storage and preservation costs now depend on the rebid.

What a replacement contractor will price

KHNP aims to sign with a new builder by July 2027. Site preparation would then start in January 2028. E15, citing Hana Securities, names Hyundai E&C and Samsung C&T as favourites. KHNP says it will not open the package to foreign builders. Daewoo says termination runs to mid-November and has not ruled out legal action.

A new bidder will price the same quantities with less time and more information. It will also price two things Daewoo did not face. One is the handover of preparatory work already done. The other is the risk of an injunction from the outgoing consortium.

A rebid with a live dispute in the file rarely comes in below the offer it replaced. That is what a narrower field does to price. With foreign builders excluded, the pool is a handful of Korean majors, and each one knows the anchor.

Czech subcontractors also wait. Local firms expecting to price packages under Daewoo now have no prime to bid to. Their capacity planning moves back with the rebid.

My read: the price holds, the float goes

I expect the Czech headline price to hold and the schedule float to shrink. The contract structure puts the civils gap on KHNP. A state utility on its first European export has strong reasons to absorb it rather than reopen the main contract.

The float is a different matter. The mechanism is calendar time. Months spent on a rebid are months taken from the run-up to first nuclear concrete. KHNP still targets first-unit completion in 2036, and nothing public yet shows that date moving.

The figure that would change my call is the signed civils price next July. If it lands well above KHNP's own anchor, KHNP is funding a loss. Then the pressure moves to the variation book, and the Czech side starts paying through change orders.