Year 2009

 December 2009

S.Korean-led group wins $20.4bn UAE nuclear deal

The United Arab Emirates has awarded a 20.4-billion-dollar contract to build four nuclear power plants to a South Korean-led consortium, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation said Sunday.

The UAE "has determined that the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) team is best equipped to fulfill the government's partnership requirements in this ambitious programme," ENEC chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak said in a statement.

The deal is expected to lead to additional contracts worth 20 billion dollars to operate and maintain the reactors over the next 60 years, South Korea's knowledge and economy ministry said in a statement in Seoul.

However, an Emirati official told AFP that "a contract covering the operation of the facility has not yet been awarded."

ENEC was established last week by presidential decree and is tasked with implementing the UAE's nuclear energy programme.

ENEC said the KEPCO-led consortium has been selected to "help operate" the power plants.

A file picture shows steam rises from the cooling towers of a nuclear power plant. The United Arab Emirates has awarded a South Korean-led consortium a 20.4 billion dollar contract to build four nuclear power plants, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation announced on Sunday.

But it did not give details of the second part of the contract, saying only that the Sunday deal covers "construction, commissioning and fuel loads" for the four 1,400 megawatt reactors, the first of which is to begin producing electricity in 2017.

The consortium tasked with building the plants comprises Korean firms KEPCO, Samsung, Hyundai and Doosan Heavy Industries, along with US firm Westinghouse, Toshiba of Japan, and KEPCO subsidiaries, ENEC said.

It won the deal against competition from two rival bidding groups that included a consortium of French companies and another composed of the US firm General Electric and Japan's Hitachi.

In Paris, the French consortium said it took note of the decision and that it remained ready to cooperate with the UAE in future.

"The companies behind the French bid remained convinced of the quality of this offer and the advanced features of the EPR in terms of safety," said the firms, referring to its European Pressurised Reactor model.

France's top energy firms, EDF, GDF-Suez and Total along with engineering giants Areva, Vinci and Alstom had come together to present the bid for the 20.4 billion-dollar contract.

The four light water nuclear reactors, which should all be operational by 2020, will boost the UAE's efforts to meet its soaring power demand.

ENEC said in its statement that volumes of natural gas that could be made available to the nation's electricity sector would be insufficient to meet future needs, while oil and particularly coal-fired power generation would be environmentally unacceptable.

By Bangkok Post

December 27, 2009

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