Belarus, Russia cooperate in building Dabaa NPP

CAIRO - 22 February 2020: Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko announced that he discussed with Russian President Vadimir Putin the ways of enhancing cooperation between both countries in building Egypt’s first nuclear power plant in the Mediterranean city of Dabaa.

“We've talked a lot about Egypt. We and Russia work over there. We are on very friendly terms with the president of Egypt. The president of Russia is also on good terms with the president of Egypt. We may launch a joint civil engineering project over there. It seems Russia is going to build four units of a nuclear power plant in Egypt,” Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko was quoted as saying by Belta newspaper on Friday.

In November 2019, 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.

It has been reported on November 18, 2019, that Putin would pay a visit to Egypt next year at President Abdel Fatah El Sisi’s invitation.

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 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.