OREANDA-NEWS. June 16, 2009. Egypt is inviting Russian companies to take part in international tender for the construction of its first nuclear power plant, Minister of Electricity and Energy of Egypt Hassan Younis said during a meeting with Director General of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation Sergey Kiriyenko in Cairo on June 16 2009.

The Ministry of Electricity and Energy of Egypt quotes Younis as saying that the tender will be open and transparent.

Younis told Kiriyenko about the needs of Egypt’s nuclear program, particularly, the need to train personnel for selecting the construction site and ensuring the safety of the reactors.

Egypt also needs technical assistance in creating a service responsible for the nuclear safety of the plant throughout its construction. Younis and Kiriyenko have agreed that Egypt will shortly submit a relevant request to Russia.

The parties also discussed the work of the special Russian-Egyptian working groups studying the Russian technologies in the field of peaceful use of nuclear energy and Russia’s experience in training personnel and ensuring the safety of nuclear facilities.

In late 2007 President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak said that Egypt was launching a program to build nuclear power plants. He said that peaceful use of nuclear energy would help the country to meet its energy demand and to diversify its energy sources.

Egypt’s first nuclear power plants is supposed to be commissioned in 7–8 years and will cost the country \\$1.5bln-2bln. Russia, the United States, China and the European Union have supported the aspiration of Egypt to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and have offered their assistance.

For many years already Egypt have operated two experimental reactors: one of them was supplied by the USSR in 1958, the other bought from Argentina. Egypt has sufficient uranium resources.

During the visit of Mubarak to Moscow in Mar 2008 Russia and Egypt signed an agreement for cooperation in the field of peaceful use of nuclear energy. This document permits Russian companies to take part in future NPP construction tenders in Egypt.

Presently, Egypt is preparing for signing a contract with a US company for receiving consultations under its first NPP construction project.