France-based engineering group Assystem has signed a memorandum of understanding with JSC Samruk-Kazyna, the national welfare fund of Kazakhstan, to cooperate on Astana’s planned civil nuclear power programme – one of three agreements put in place this week as France aims to win the tender for the central European country’s first commercial nuclear reactors.

Kazakhstan’s state-owned uranium mining company Kazatomprom and Canada-based Orano Mining, a subsidiary of French nuclear fuel cycle group Orano, signed an agreement for the extraction of uranium ore.

Yerzhan Mukanov, Kazatomprom’s chief executive officer, and Karen Daifuklu, executive director of the France-based International Institute of Nuclear Energy, signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate in training of Kazatomprom nuclear personnel and for joint research programmes in nuclear energy.