The US and Saudi Arabia will sign a preliminary agreement to cooperate over the kingdom’s ambitions to develop a civil nuclear industry, US energy secretary Chris Wright said in the Saudi capital Riyadh on 13 April.

Wright, who had met Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman earlier on Sunday, said Riyadh and Washington were “on a pathway” to reaching an agreement to work together to develop a Saudi civil nuclear programme.

Wright, on his first visit to the kingdom as energy secretary as part of tour of energy-producing Gulf states, said further details over a memorandum detailing the energy cooperation between Riyadh and Washington would come later this year.