Russia, Saudi Arabia sign nuclear power agreement

Moscow and Riyadh signed a cooperation agreement for the peaceful use of nuclear power on Thursday, Sputnik reported.

The head of Russia’s state-owned nuclear power company, Rosatom,  corporation signed the deal with the head of the King Abdullah City for Nuclear Power Maher Al-Awdan.

As part of its push to reduce its depends on petrol, Saudi Arabia is planning to produce 17.6 gigawatts of electricity through a nuclear power plant by 2032.

Read: US firms push Washington to restart nuclear pact talks with Riyadh

Abdullah Al-Shehri, governor of Saudi’s Electricity & Cogeneration Regulatory Authority (ECRA), said: “We are heading to build nuclear power stations and we hope to start working in them very soon to meet our basic needs.”

He noted that there are several challenges in the Kingdom regarding electricity production, in particular population growth and increased demand.

Read: Saudi Arabia to extract uranium for ‘self-sufficient’ nuclear programme