CAIRO, August 6. /TASS/. Egypt has finished negotiations with Russia on the reactors for a nuclear power plant at El Dabaa. The four basic agreements between the sides will be ready for implementation after final examination by Egypt’s State Council, or the Supreme Administrative Court, Egyptian Minister of Electricity Mohamed Shaker said on Sunday.
According to the minister, the legal review of two out of the four agreements on the El Dabaa nuclear plant "is completely finished," while the other two are still checked by the Supreme Administrative Court. He noted that much has been done, with international consultancy engaged, to review the agreements’ technical and legal aspects.
Shaker said he hopes the Egyptian engineering troops will clear the territory meant for the power plant construction of mines in six months. He also noted that Russia’s Rosatom, which is involved in the project, will supply to his country "a third-generation nuclear plant with the highest security and protection level."
Earlier on Sunday, Egypt’s ministries of electricity and of investments and international cooperation signed a cooperation protocol to clear the territory allocated for the construction of the El Dabaa nuclear plant of mines and other objects remaining after several wars. The overall area to be cleared of mines measures 4,533 hectares. Two million Egyptian pounds (more than 110,000 U.S. dollars) have been allocated for these purposes under the protocol.
The Russian-Egyptian intergovernmental agreement on the construction of Egypt’s first nuclear power plant of four power units of 1,200 megawatt each was signed in November 2015 in Cairo. Apart from that, the sides inked an agreement on extending a government export loan of 25 billion U.S. dollars to Egypt that is to cover about 85% of construction costs. The Egyptian side is to raise the rest of the sum from private investors. The project is to be implemented within 12 years.
Egypt will start payments for the 3-percent loan in October 2029.
The nuclear plant will be built near the city of El Alamein some 3.5 kilometers off the Mediterranean coast. Construction works are supposed to give jobs to more than 20,000 people and when commissioned, the nuclear plant will employ some 4,000 people.