Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said Tuesday that the country's first NPP would be built in the Sinop province on the Black Sea, and was expected to come online in 2012. According to the national daily Zaman, the issue of building NPPs will be discussed at a meeting of the Turkish National Security Council on February 28, along with the Energy Ministry's nuclear energy program. The ministry's document specifies the regions and timeframes for NPP construction, and the terms for related international auctions. Two NPPs may be built in central Turkey, including one near the capital, Ankara. The plants will run on heavy-water reactors. The total output of the NPPs would be around 5,000 megawatts, with construction of the first plant beginning in 2007. Experts estimate the total cost of building the plants at $7-8 billion. Turkish authorities stepped up work on constructing NPPs after a sharp fall in imports of natural gas from neighboring Iran was registered in January. Following this, the energy minister stressed the importance of reducing the country's energy dependence on other countries, and the need to diversify power sources. Turkey has announced auctions for the construction of an NPP several times in the past. One such plant was to have been built in Akkuyu on the Mediterranean coast, but was the project was abandoned in 2000 due to lack of financing. The current NPP construction project has led to interest from Russia, the United States, China, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, South Korea, and Japan. PIN/RIA NOVOSTI