Página/12 reported on October 2 that Argentina's government has cancelled the Atucha III nuclear plant, a project with Chinese technology and financing, according to Nucleoeléctrica shareholder-assembly minutes the newspaper says it saw. No government statement, Boletín Oficial entry or second preferred outlet has confirmed it, and The Ushuaia Times has not seen the minutes.
According to Página/12, and to the science outlet Periferia, which relayed its account, the minutes record a meeting of the shareholders of Nucleoeléctrica Argentina (NA-SA), the state company that runs the country's nuclear plants, on Wednesday, September 23. They say the assembly decided to "leave without effect" the Candu and Hualong projects that a 2021 assembly had told NA-SA to build. The stated reason is "lack of allocation of economic resources and material impossibility of compliance", within the public emergency declared by Law 27,742, Milei's 2024 Bases Law.
The same minutes reportedly declare the site "of business interest" and authorize the board to approve tender documents for a public call to build a reactor with an estimated investment of US$1.203bn, "100% private capital, without public funds or guarantees." That would require surface rights over 12 hectares of the land reserved for Atucha III, and NA-SA could operate and maintain the plant.
The figure matches a proposal the government did publicly announce. On July 2, Economy Minister Luis Caputo said on X that Meitner Energy, a company of the US-based Ansari Group, 40% owned by Argentina's state-run engineering firm Invap, had presented a plan for a modular reactor at Atucha, "the first of its type worldwide". BAE Negocios reported a 300-megawatt reactor and an investment of US$1.2bn, still subject to Economy Ministry approval and licensing by the nuclear regulator; La Arena added that Meitner would pay a fee for surface rights. Página/12 and Periferia argue the tender is designed for Meitner. That is their inference; the minutes as described do not name a bidder.
Página/12 headlines the story as "total alignment with the United States", and Periferia says the decision reflects Argentina's alignment with President Trump. That framing is theirs, not established fact. The sources describe a funding rationale, and no official has linked the decision to Washington.
Atucha III's future has been unclear since at least late 2024. NA-SA and China National Nuclear Corporation signed the contract in February 2022 for a plant estimated at US$8.3bn, with at least 85% of the money to come from China. Infobae reported in December 2024 that Milei planned to move ahead with it, while officials would neither confirm nor deny that the Chinese project would continue, and the negotiating period had been extended to April 2025. Argentina has since pitched nuclear technology exports at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
If the minutes are authentic, they would end a project that Infobae valued in 2024 at US$8.3bn, most of it to be financed by China. The next confirmation to watch for is a government or Nucleoeléctrica statement, or the publication of tender documents.