CAIRO: President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi met Monday the CEO of Russian owned-state Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation Sergei Kiriyenko to discuss technical and financial offers to construct Egypt’s first nuclear power plant Mediterranean city of Dabaa, stated presidential spokesperson Alaa Youssef.
The plant’s construction is to be accomplished in two phases: a Russian company will build four reactors, while the other four reactors will be offered for an international tender. Each reactor will produce 1,200 Megawatts of electricity, and the construction works are scheduled to start in mid-2016 to be completed by 2020.
Kiriyenko’s visit to Cairo is the third in 2015 over the plant construction, Youssef added, noted that the President met with Kiriyenko in August in Moscow.
Rosatom vice-president Anton Moskvin announced Wednesday that both sides reached the final stages of negotiating the construction of the nuclear power plant contract. He added the contract would involve a loan from Russia to Egypt, Reuters reported.
In February, Sisi and Putin announced reaching agreements on building the plant and establishing a Russian-Egyptian free trade zone.
In 1981, Egypt allocated the Dabaa area in the governorate of Matrouh, 183.9 miles to the northwest of Cairo, to build its first nuclear plant of 55 square kilometers.