Dabaa to be honorable example for Africa, Arab world: Rosatom manager

CAIRO - 4 December 2019: Anatoly Koftanov, director of Rosatom and Dabaa project manager,said that Al-Dabaa nuclear plant will be an honorable example for Arab and African countries that want to establish nuclear plants.

Koftanov’s speech came during the second day of the fifth Arab Forum on the Prospects of Electricity Generation and Desalination of Sea Water with Nuclear Power.

Koftanov stated that Russia, represented by Rosatom, is doing its utmost to support and help Egypt in the success of its peaceful nuclear program to generate electricity. "When work has first started in Dabaa,Rosatom faced challenges in infrastructure,” he said,stressing that Rosatom's long experience in the construction of nuclear plants helped the project overcome these challenges.

In November, Chief Human Resources Officer at Rosatom Tatyana Terentyeva told Egypt Today that her corporation plans to train about 2,000 people of operational and maintenance personnel who will work in Al Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant starting early 2020.

“Training employees is our top priority. During the implementation of a project, we do our best to help partner countries on each step related to nuclear education,” Terentyeva affirmed.

“Together with the Egyptian side, we are working on updating the country's higher education system to ensure continuous training of young personnel for the developing nuclear industry in Egypt,” Terentyeva stated.

“Since 2014, there has also been a program of state scholarships under the government of the Russian Federation for Egyptian students wishing to master nuclear and engineering specialties in leading Russian universities. All 30 available places have been filled for class 2019/20. We are currently in the process of gauging how many available places we will have for class 2020/21,” Terentyeva added.

In 2014, Egypt and Russia announced their cooperation in the nuclear power field. On November 19, 2015, an agreement was finally signed between Cairo and Moscow that allows Russia to build a nuclear power plant in the Mediterranean city of Dabaa, with Russia extending a $25 billion loan to Egypt to cover the cost of construction. The loan will cover 85 percent of the plant, with Egypt funding the remaining 15 percent.

According to the deal, Russian nuclear firm Rosatom will finance and construct four third-generation reactors, with a capacity of 1,200 megawatts (MW) each, for a total of 4,800 MW. The plant will be built on approximately 12,000 feddans and is expected to create over 50,000 job opportunities.

Nuclear energy is part of the government’s plan to diversify its energy sources to prevent any future crisis resulting from shortages in electricity.