Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation “Rosatom” have signed a number of contracts with Egypt worth tens of billions of dollars, the company’s chief announced yesterday.
Alexey Likhachev said that Rosatom had signed a series of commercial deals with Egypt, most significantly the $60 billion contract to construct the Dabaa nuclear power plant, as well as its maintenance and supplies of nuclear fuel.
“These contracts are the first-ever in the nuclear industry and are Russia’s largest non-crude products export agreement,” Russia Today (RT) quoted Likhachev as saying. “This is certainly a very big contribution to the development of Russian-Egyptian relations.”
READ: Russia to build nuclear fuel depot in Egypt
Last year, Moscow and Cairo signed an agreement to construct Egypt’s first-ever nuclear plant in Egypt’s northern city of Dabaa, in an attempt to help Egypt fulfil its growing energy demands. The total investment of the project amounts to $21 billion, with a potential increase to $26 billion.
According to the Egyptian energy minister, Mohamed Shaker, the plant is due to be completed by 2026-2027.
The nuclear plant will be built with a Russian loan of up to $25 billion at an annual interest rate of three per cent. This will cover 85 per cent of the project’s total costs. According to the joint agreement, Egypt will provide the remaining 15 per cent of the costs.
The plant will consist of four nuclear reactors with a production capacity of about 4,800 megawatts.