US firms invited to bid for Saudi nuclear power plants

RIYADH: The Kingdom has invited US firms to take part in developing its civilian nuclear power program, Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said on Monday, adding that Saudi Arabia was not interested in diverting nuclear technology to military use.

The Kingdom is committed to restricting nuclear technology to civilian use, the minister added.

“Not only are we not interested in any way in diverting nuclear technology to military use, we are very active in nonproliferation by others,” he said at a joint news conference with US Energy Secretary Rick Perry.

KACARE, the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, is the Saudi government agency tasked with the nuclear plans. It said last month on its website that it was in talks with Toshiba-owned Westinghouse and France’s EDF.

“We hope that the two paths will converge — the commercial, technical discussions between KACARE and the American companies, while we work with our counterparts on the American side to address the regulatory and policy issues,” Al-Falih said.

Perry said it was “a bit premature” to comment on the negotiations.

“We are in the early stages of it but I think we both are working from the position of getting to yes,” he said.

Al-Falih also told reporters on Monday that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is expected to stick to its current policy of output cuts in the second half of 2018, but oil producers have plenty of supply with which to respond to any sudden disruptions.

Saudi Arabia says it wants nuclear power to diversify its energy mix, allowing it to export more crude rather than burning it to generate electricity. It has not yet acquired nuclear power or enrichment technology.

Reactors need uranium enriched to around 5 percent purity but the same technology in this process can also be used to enrich the heavy metal to a higher, weapons-grade level.