A 621-megawatt Westinghouse reactor stands at Napot Point in Bataan province, fully built, and has never been loaded with fuel. As of Nov. 6 the Philippines is again weighing what to do with it, and World Nuclear News published a site-visit feature by reporter Warwick Pipe on the state of the mothballed plant four decades on. The options on the table range from refurbishing and commissioning the unit to replacing it with a newer design.
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Construction began in July 1976 under President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., a response to the 1970s oil shocks, and the plant was finished at a cost of $1.9 billion. Then it sat. Safety concerns about earthquake exposure and a cloud of corruption allegations kept fuel out of the core, and after the April 1986 Chernobyl accident the newly installed Corazon Aquino government decided to mothball it for good.
A Westinghouse unit completed in 1984 and left idle
Sources disagree on one date. The World Nuclear News feature says the plant was completed in 1986 but never started up, while the World Nuclear Association country profile dates completion to 1984 and ties 1986 to the decision to mothball. The 1984 date matches the construction record and is the one used here. Either way, the reactor has never produced a kilowatt-hour.
Keeping a never-used plant presentable is not free. The World Nuclear Association puts upkeep at roughly $800,000 a year, and the last payment on the construction debt was made in April 2007. Court history added to the baggage: a New Jersey jury cleared Westinghouse and Burns & Roe of bribery charges in 1993, while in 2012 the Sandiganbayan absolved the Marcos family but found that businessman Herminio Disini received $50 million in commissions from Westinghouse.
What it would cost to turn the reactor on
A 2008 mission from the International Atomic Energy Agency judged refurbishment feasible and estimated the bill at $800 million to $1 billion. A 2009 study by South Korea’s Kepco recommended refurbishment too. By November 2022, Department of Energy Undersecretary Sharon Garin was citing $2.3 billion. Each estimate is a snapshot taken before any detailed inspection of 40-year-old equipment, which is why the current condition assessment matters more than any single cost figure.
That assessment is now under way. Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power agreed in October 2024 to fund a feasibility study, which began in January 2025 in two phases: first the plant’s present condition, then the refurbishment options. Energy Secretary Garin told reporters the study produced “positive initial findings,” according to a Newswav report, and Energy Department Director Patrick Aquino said the results would guide talks with foreign governments and give investors clearer cost estimates.
Rehabilitate, replace or sell, and who would regulate it
The government has framed three paths: rehabilitate the existing plant, replace it with a modern facility, or sell the infrastructure to the private sector. A replacement could be a conventional 600- or 1,200-megawatt reactor or a small modular design. Back in 2022, then-Undersecretary Gerardo Erguiza said the Bataan option “may cause a spark of debate like in the past,” as PTV News reported when the decision was handed to the incoming Marcos Jr. administration.
Policy around the plant is moving on several fronts at once. An October 2025 Energy Department circular set the conditions for the country’s first commercial reactor, labeled the Pioneer NPP. A June 2026 draft circular targeted 1,200 megawatts online by 2032, while a September 2026 draft cited delivery from 2038, a six-year slip in the working target that bears directly on whether an old plant could be revived faster than a new build. Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power also signed memorandums of understanding with Meralco, alongside the Korea Export-Import Bank, in March 2026 and with AboitizPower in July 2026.
In 2022, Erguiza also cited studies by Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and Russia’s Rosatom that he said found rehabilitation feasible, and he described Bataan as a legacy project, hoping the incoming president would settle the matter once and for all. Four years later the matter remains unsettled: no decision to refurbish, replace or sell has been announced in the sources reviewed, and the condition study is still the document the government says it is waiting on.
Regulation is a second gate. President Marcos Jr. signed Republic Act 12305 in September 2025, creating the Philippine Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority, or PhilATOM, as an independent nuclear regulator. The World Nuclear Association noted that as of October 2026 no commissioners had been appointed. Philippine Nuclear Research Institute Director Carlo Arcilla floated rehabilitating Bataan as a fast-track route if the country wants nuclear power by 2032, the Inquirer reported, though PhilATOM would still have to license any restart.
Local resistance has hardened too: in June 2026 the Morong municipal council declared the town, which hosts the plant, a non-nuclear zone banning nuclear facilities and radioactive material storage. Whether a municipal ban can bind a national project is an open legal question, and no source read for this article says how the Energy Department intends to answer it.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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