Contracts Sisi-Putin signed, first reactor in Dabaa in 2022
(ANSAmed) – CAIRO, DECEMBER 12 – Egypt has made progress towards the construction of a nuclear power plant in Dabaa, the first in Africa after the two South African reactors.
During Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Cairo, contracts were signed to make progress on the project, which was launched in 2015 and which provides at the moment for the construction of the first of four reactors in 2022.
The plant will be set up on the Mediterranean coast, some 170 km west of Alexandria, on the site of a reactor built by the Soviet Union in the 1950s.
The signature by government members in the presence of Putin and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, represents a ”record agreement in the history of nuclear industry”, stressed Alexei Likhachev, director of Rosatom, the Russian State company that will build the plant by 2029 (or 2026, according to forecasts).
Apart from the two South African reactors ”Koeberg” and ”Duynefontein”, the African continent does not have reactors in place or under constructions, as stated by the website of the IAEA.
Non-binding development plans exist however in Nigeria, Kenya, Morocco and Algeria, according to the world Nuclear Association.
”The most modern and safe” technology will be used in Dabaa, stressed Putin, implicitly referring to the reactors that will belong to the post-Fukushima ”Generation 3+”.
Rosatom will manage the plant worth over 5 gigawatts for 60 years and the investment is worth between 21 and 27 billion dollars, according to estimates. In order to boost strategic relations with Egypt, a point of reference in Moscow’s geopolitical influence in the Middle East and North Africa, Russia provides subsidized rates of 80-85%.
Source – ANSA