"The group in partnership with Westinghouse and Shaw Group from the United States will submit a proposal for a first nuclear power plant and fleet option on 31 January," it said.
The announcement comes after M&R said on Monday that it was operating at 75% capacity in local operations due to the shortage of power – a situation government admitted is a "national emergency".
M&R has secured the construction contract to Hitachi for the Medupi and Bravo boiler contracts (12 units of 750MW) collectively valued at about R15bn.
The group is also a contender for the Medupi civil construction contract (about R2,5bn) and the Ingula pumped storage underground construction contract (about R6,5bn) plus associated works (about R1bn), all of which are currently under adjudication by Eskom.
At 16:45 Monday, Murray & Roberts' shares were down 5,89% or R4,91 at R78,49.
The group said its operations had been disrupted since mid-January, but reached a crisis last week as most of its underground mining contracting operations were suspended for safety reasons.
"Electricity supply to the group's CISCO plant in Western Cape was suspended for an estimated three to four weeks," the group said.
The national electricity supply system has stabilised at a lower level of demand with less evidence of load shedding and the group's remaining domestic operations were currently operating normally, the company said.
The group's South African underground mining operations had currently resumed at about two-thirds of capacity, it said.
"The group has resolved to pursue its contracted rights to recover to the extent possible in all its South African businesses, the cost and time impact it has or will suffer as a consequence of the current electricity supply problems being experienced," it said.
The group said it had mobilised standby generation capacity to many of its project sites, and most of its business units had installed such capacity following previous power outages.
"There are ongoing discussions with clients and Eskom concerning the guarantee of an uninterrupted supply of electricity to those projects dedicated to the 2010 soccer World Cup," the company said.
Eskom has stated that the current crisis requires between three and four weeks to resolve.
Additional information on the impact of power crisis on the group would be released later next month, it said. – I-Net Bridge
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