19 Nov (NucNet): Russia and Egypt have signed an agreement to collaborate on the construction and operation in Egypt of a nuclear power plant equipped with four reactor units with capacity of 1,200 megawatts each, Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom has announced.
Rosatom said the agreement, which follows a provisional agreement signed between the two countries in February, was signed today in Cairo by Rosatom director-general Sergei Kiriyenko and Egypt’s minister of energy Mohamed Shaker.
Rosatom said the station, Egypt's first, would be built at Dabaa in the north of the country and is expected to be completed by 2022.
A memorandum of understanding was also signed today between the Russian Federal Service for Environmental, Technological and Nuclear Supervision, and Egypt’s regulator, the National Centre of Nuclear Safety and Radiation Control. The MoU will “facilitate further development of nuclear infrastructure”, Rosatom said.
Rosatom said documents signed today included details of nuclear fuel supply for the planned station as well as obligations related to operation, maintenance and repair.
Rosatom did not give details of the reactor technology to be used at Dabaa, but said Egypt would become the region’s only country with Generation III+ reactor technology.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, speaking on state television, gave few details but said the project would involve the building of a third-generation station with four reactors.
Egypt does not have any commercially operational nuclear reactor units. It does have two research reactors, both owned and operated by the Atomic Energy Authority of Egypt. One is used for neutron research and radiography, and the other for neutron physics and the production of radioisotopes.
In March, Russia and Egypt signed an agreement for the development of a design for a nuclear power plant with a desalination facility. At the time Rosatom said it believed a desalination facility at a large capacity nuclear power plant with Russian-supplied VVER pressurised water reactors has “significant potential” in foreign markets.
