Stockholm - Swedish state-owned utility Vattenfall and a group of five electricity-intensive companies Friday announced plans to cooperate on future power production.

A joint venture between Vattenfall and the Industrikraft group was to study the feasibility of various energy sources, including renewables as well as possibly building a new nuclear reactor to ensure cheap "baseload power."

The power-intensive industry fears a power shortage when the 10 current reactors are to be decommissioned at the end of their lifespan in the 2020s.

"Naturally, we see nuclear power as one alternative, but we'll also be studying other options," said Magnus Hall, Industrikraft chairman.

Vattenfall chief executive Lars G Josefsson said nuclear power was one option, but there were others including biomass.

Industrikraft was formed 2008 and owned by mining company Boliden, Eka Chemicals and the forestry groups Holmen, Stora Enso and SCA Forest Products.

Access to electricity at "competitive prices" was needed to safeguard jobs, Industrikraft said.

Earlier this year, the centre-right government said it would scrap a ban against building new nuclear power reactors, revoking a 1980 referendum decision to phase out nuclear power.

The debate about climate change and need to secure long-term energy production forced the re-think, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and the leaders of the three other coalition parties said.

The agreement was seen as a sizeable concession by the Centre Party that in the 1970s was an outspoken opponent of nuclear power - an issue that triggered the collapse of one non-socialist coalition government in that decade.

The opposition Green Party was critical of the Industrikraft plans.

Any new reactors would be built on the three current nuclear plant sites in Sweden.

Three energy groups - Vattenfall, Germany's E. ON and Finland's Fortum - own stakes in the 10 plants currently operating.

Sweden has operated 12 nuclear reactors at most. Two at the Barseback plant in southern Sweden have been decommissioned, the most recent in May 2005. (dpa)