Russia supplying four VVER-1200 units for African nation’s first nuclear station
Concreting of the fourth tier of the reactor building inner containment has been completed at Unit 1 of the El Dabaa nuclear power station under construction in Egypt, Russian state-owned nuclear corporation Rosatom said.
El Dabaa is Egypt’s first nuclear power station and is being built at El Dabaa in Matruh province, on the Mediterranean coast about 300 km northwest of Cairo.
Rosatom is supplying four Generation III+ VVER-1200 pressurised water reactor units for the station, each with an electrical capacity of 1,200 MW.
Rosatom said the latest containment work on El Dabaa-1 took 30 hours and raised the reactor building elevation from 24.4 metres to 34 metres, with the height of the concreted tier being 9.6 metres.
Rosatom said it is planning to begin installation of the fifth tier around mid-August.
At a nuclear power reactor, the inner containment acts as a hermetic protection system, designed to withstand high external and internal pressures and protect against radiation release.
VVER-1200 plants have a total of seven cylindrical tiers for the inner steel containment, with the fifth one serving as a transition between the main part of the containment and its dome structure. The dome itself consists of a lower and upper tier.
Construction of El Dabaa-1 began in July 2022. In November 2025, the reactor pressure vessel was successfully lifted into place, becoming the latest construction milestone at the site.
Russia is supplying the El Dabaa reactor units under a set of contracts in force since 2017 and will provide nuclear fuel for the lifetime of the station. Under the contracts, it will also support Egypt with personnel training during the first 10 years of operation.
