Russia is on an African safari traveling through four countries in an attempt to strengthen bilateral cooperation. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has been in Egypt making promises to help with the North African country’s nuclear ambitions. Toward that end Russia said that it will prepare a tender proposal, expected by the end of 2010, for Egypt’s planned two to four reactors at its first nuclear power station.
Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia’s nuclear energy agency Rosatom, who was in Cairo with Medvedev, said the financing of such projects generally involve a deal on export credits, and said Russia was interested in developing Egypt’s uranium reserves.
“We are definitely interested in uranium. [Egypt] surely has much uranium, though most of it is located unfortunately in mountainous areas,” he told reporters. Kiriyenko said that the starting price for a reactor was generally around $3.5 billion.
Egypt has been trying to kick off its nuclear program for the past two years without much success. The country is looking at nuclear energy as a way to combat its ever growing energy demands while leaving traditional sources of energy – oil and gas – available to fuel its export revenues.
Just recently WorleyParsons signed a nuclear power pact consultancy contract with the Egyptian authorities worth around $160 million.
And while Egypt was the first stop, another African country is also well on its way to having closer ties to the energy super power. Nigeria and Russia were expected to sign a nuclear energy pact as the Russian envoy makes its way to Abuja. Kiriyenko said, “We will sign an agreement on cooperation in the nuclear sector which includes the building of a power plant, of a scientific reactor, training, cooperation in nuclear safety, and exploration of uranium.” The result was a new joint venture, dubbed Nigaz, created by Russian gas monopoly Gazprom and Nigeria’s state-owned oil company NNPC.
Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for Rosatom, Russia’s state-run civil nuclear energy agency, said the Nigaz deal would lay the foundations for building nuclear power reactors in the west African country. Nigeria has previously indicated it would like to develop a nuclear power plant to address its energy shortages.
Following Nigeria, Namibia received a visit from Medvedev where the Kremlin chief held discussions with President Hifikepunye Pohamba. Once having a strong connection with the southern African country during its struggle for independence, Medvedev said he hoped the Soviet ties to Namibia would now be rewarded. Pohamba acknowledged the Soviet assistance during the Cold War and said, “We would like to secure access of our products to Russia."
And Russia is particularly taking a larger part in Namibia’s vast uranium deposits. Yury Trutnev, Russia’s natural resources minister, said Moscow was interested in helping Namibia develop its nuclear industry. "Namibia very much needs to develop its energy sphere," he said.
Russia has started exploring for uranium in Namibia and hopes that one of the fields will yield between 20,000 and 30,000 tons of uranium, Sergei Kiriyenko, chief of Rosatom, said earlier this week.
The Namibian stop placed the spotlight on uranium deposits in the country’s deserts, and Russian demand could make the country the top producer of the nuclear feedstock. Previous deals between the two countries had Namibia awarding an exploration license to a joint venture led by uranium dealer Tekhsnabexport in 2007.
The African safari ends today as Medvedev makes a quick stop in Angola before heading back to the Kremlin. Looking to rebuild post Cold War ties, Medvedev’s stop in Angola was to focus on an array of cooperation topics, but none so prominent as energy resource exploration. Angola too has uranium resources which the Kremlin may find attractive in addition too its prolific oil and gas deposits.