Possible Belarus-Russia partnership to build nuclear power plant in Egypt mentioned

MINSK, 21 February (BelTA) – Belarus and Russia may team up to build a nuclear power plant in Egypt. Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko noted he had discussed the matter with President of Russia Vladimir Putin as he met with Governor of Russia's Arkhangelsk Oblast Igor Orlov on 21 February, BelTA has learned.

Aleksandr Lukashenko said: “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.”

Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed that the Russian state nuclear industry corporation Rosatom is very pleased with Belarusian construction workers. “We've discussed the matter of joint construction. By the way, it was before the construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant. We intended to get construction experience together with Russians over there,” the head of state noted.

According to the Rosatom website, the nuclear power plant El Dabaa is the first nuclear power plant in Egypt. It is located in Matrouh Governorate, Egypt. It will consist of four units with VVER-1200 reactors. In November 2015 Russia and Egypt signed an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in building and operating Egypt's first nuclear power plant using Russian technologies. The designing of the nuclear power plant continues. Documents are being prepared to get the so-called nuclear license for building the nuclear power plant from the Egyptian Nuclear Plants Authority (NPPA).