Russia signs three nuclear accords

RUSSIA signed nuclear cooperation agreements last week with Saudi Arabia, Myanmar and Tatarstan.

According to a report in the World Nuclear News, Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom’s agreement with Saudi Arabia created a legal basis for the first time for co-operation between the two countries in nuclear energy, including the design, construction and operating of nuclear reactors.

The report said although Saudi’s nuclear industry was in its infancy, it had plans to build 16 nuclear reactors in the next 20 years to help meet the growing energy demand for electricity generation and water desalination. Rosatom also signed a memorandum of understanding with Myanmar last week, the report said, in preparation for an intergovernmental co-operation agreement on nuclear energy.

Tatarstan’s acting president, Rustam Minnikhanov, signed the memorandum related to nuclear, radiation and environmental safety.

South Africa’s nuclear cooperation agreements with Russia, China, France and the US were kept under wraps for months until they were tabled in Parliament 10 days ago.

The agreements are broad and do not commit South Africa to signing procurement deals with any of the countries, contrary to the hype surrounding the Russian agreement signed with South Africa in September last year.

When the agreement was signed – the first South Africa had entered into – Rosatom’s director-general, Sergey Kirienko, seemed to imply the nuclear procurement was imminent, saying Rosatom “seeks to create in South Africa a full-scale nuclear cluster”.

Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson added at the time that she was “sure that co-operation with Russia will allow us to implement our ambitious plans for the creation by 2030 of 9.6 GW of new nuclear capacities”, and that the agreement “opens up the door for South Africa to access Russian technologies, funding and infrastructure”.