Abu Dhabi, December 28: The United Arab Emirates has awarded a South Korean-led consortium a $20.4 billion contract to build four nuclear power plants, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) announced Sunday.
The UAE “has determined that the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) team is best equipped to fulfill the government’s partnership requirements in this ambitious program,” ENEC Chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak said in a statement.
The deal is expected to lead to additional contracts worth $20 billion to operate and maintain the reactors over the next 60 years, South Korea’s Knowledge and Economy Ministry said in a statement in Seoul.
ENEC was established last week by a presidential decree and is tasked with implementing the UAE’s nuclear energy program, according to official WAM news agency.
ENEC said the KEPCO-led consortium has also been selected to help operate the power plants. However, ENEC did not give details of the second part of the contract, saying only that Sunday’s deal covers “construction, commissioning and fuel loads” for the four 1,400-megawatt reactors, the first of which is to begin producing electricity in 2017.
The consortium tasked with building the plants comprises Korean firms KEPCO, Samsung, Hyundai and Doosan Heavy Industries, along with US firm Westinghouse, Toshiba of Japan, and KEPCO subsidiaries, ENEC said.
It won the deal against competition from rival bidders including the French nuclear group Areva and a consortium composed of the US firm General Electric and Japan’s Hitachi. The four light water nuclear reactors will be built in Sila, 330 km west of Abu Dhabi.
The South Korean president’s office described the deal as “the largest mega-project in Korean history,” while KEPCO said it was also in talks with Turkey to export two nuclear power reactors to Black Sea areas.
The UAE is the world’s third largest oil exporter but must import natural gas to run many of its existing power plants. It says its energy needs are expected to almost double by 2020.
The United States earlier this year signed an agreement with the UAE for the country to import, rather than produce, fuel for its nuclear reactors. The UAE did this to allay fears about enrichment facilities being used to make weapons-grade material.
Gulf neighbor Iran has long been at odds with the West over its declared plans to use enriched uranium to generate electricity, a program the United States and European allies fear is a cover to develop the ability to produce atomic bombs.
South Korea hopes to use nascent nuclear programs in the Middle East, which include developments in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as a springboard for expanding its nuclear industry. “We are now expecting much bigger opportunities in entering overseas markets as winning the UAE nuclear deal will play a role of convincing those countries in the Middle East and other regions which are thinking of importing nuclear power reactors,” KEPCO said in a statement.
South Korea first introduced atomic power in 1978 and now has 20 nuclear reactors in operation. The country relies on atomic power for about 40 percent of its electricity.
——Agencies