Germany should rethink nuclear plan -RWE chief

FRANKFURT, Nov 25 (Reuters) - German utility RWE's (RWEG.DE) new chief executive, Juergen Grossmann, said in a newspaper interview the country should rethink its nuclear-exit plan drawn up seven years ago between the government and power producers.

"The decision was taken under different assumptions," Grossmann said in the summary of the story, due to be published on Monday by business daily Handelsblatt.

"A barrel of oil cost between $20 and $30 at the time und climate protection was not on the agenda, today we are much more advanced," he said.

Grossmann referred to record oil at just under $100 a barrel, which increases cost pressures on energy producers, and to the latest investment pledges by utilities in renewable energy research and assets so as to protect the environment.

In return, they should be allowed to keep their nuclear plants open longer, he said.

Much is at stake for RWE, whose Biblis B reactor is next to close under the programme, in 2008, and whose reliance on coal-fired generation has become costly under EU emission rules.

RWE has a long-standing 15 billion euros ($22.21 billion) investment plan running through 2012 and plans to quadruple its generation capacity from renewables via annual investment of at least one billion euros in the sector from 2008.

When the nuclear phase-out was agreed in 2000, the former centre-left/green government needed to appease a population heavily oppposed to nuclear power due to perceived safety risks.

In that climate, Germany decided to close all its reactors, which supplied a third of its electrcity, by 2021.