El-Dabaa nuclear plant as important as Aswan Dam, says Russia ambassador to Egypt

Russia’s Ambassador to Egypt Georgy Borisenko has visited the construction site of El-Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant, accompanied by Chairman of Egypt’s Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA) Amjad Al–Wakeel, according to a statement by the Russian embassy in Cairo.

Supervisors of the project from the NPPA and the Russian State Nuclear Energy Corporation, which is implementing the project, also participated in the visit.

According to Borisenko: “El-Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant project is considered one of the most important cooperation projects between Cairo and Moscow, and it is a project that not only contributes to the great tradition of cooperation between the two countries, but also elevates these relations to new strategic heights.”

The Russian official continued: “El-Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant is as important as the construction of the Aswan High Dam that was undertaken by the two countries during the Soviet era in the 1960s. We are sure that the El-Dabaa project will also be an example of cooperation between the highest competencies from both countries, and it will also contribute to achieving economic and social growth for Egypt through enabling it to generate clean and economic energy for decades to come.”

On the other hand, Al–Wakeel stated: “The project is one of the most ambitious Egyptian projects currently being implemented, and it is considered as the fulfilment of an Egyptian dream that began to be thought of since the last century as a way to develop a peaceful programme for the uses of nuclear energy in the field of generating electricity in an economical and safe manner.”

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He continued: “It was important to choose a competent partner with significant expertise in this field and the capacity to realise and implement this project with the highest standards of safety, and fortunately we found these requirements in Russia, our old friend and ally, and we are sure that this great project will achieve the desired success as a result of sincere efforts made by both sides with a high sense of responsibility and distinguished capabilities on our part to adapt to advanced Russian technology and effectively supervise the implementation of the project.”

The delegation inspected the construction sites of the nuclear units, and stopped at the weather monitoring station, where a demonstration on the construction phase and future implementation plans of the project was presented.

Afterwards, the delegation went to the construction site of the pier at the El-Dabaa plant, which is still under construction and is intended for the transportation of heavy equipment to the nuclear station.

The El-Dabaa project is the first nuclear power plant in Egypt, situated in the Matrouh governorate on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

The plant consists of four electricity units, each with a capacity of 1,200 megawatts, equipped with third-generation pressurised water reactors (VVER-1200), considered the latest in modern nuclear technology.

This technology has proven its usefulness and works successfully in two countries, as four nuclear units equipped with reactors of this type operate in Russia (two units in the Leningrad station and two other units in the Novovoronezh plant), in addition to a similar nuclear power unit in the Belarus nuclear plant that has been linked to the country’s unified energy network in November 2020.