South Africa’s more than R1-trillion proposed nuclear plan, which would see the commissioning of three power stations to supply 9,600MW, has attracted great interest from state-owned and private nuclear power firms around the globe. It would be South Africa’s single biggest procurement, dwarfing the controversial R30bn arms deal in 1999.

While the National Planning Commission and the Department of Energy have produced new modelling which suggests that the nuclear programme be delayed and cheaper options such as gas pursued, President Jacob Zuma indicated in his state of the nation address last month that the government "expected to conclude the procurement" of 9,600MW of nuclear energy.

 

The signing of government-to-government agreements is a necessary first step before a commercial relationship on nuclear power can be initiated. While South Africa has agreements with France, the US, China, Canada, Russia, Japan and South Korea, many countries have sought to update these in recent months.

 

Mr Martins’s special adviser, Robert Nkuna, said  that the agreement with China was still in draft form. This was also the case with new agreements with the Russians and the French, he said.

 

"China has expressed interest to participate in South Africa’s civil nuclear energy projects and has proposed an agreement that is still under consideration by both parties. The draft agreement includes: skills development and capacity building; research and development; the nuclear build programme; supplier development and localisation; joint marketing; supply of nuclear energy products and funding to promote regional infrastructure development."

 

During their visit to South Africa,  Chinese state-owned enterprises the China General Nuclear Corporation and the State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation also signed an agreement with the Nuclear Energy Corporation of SA (Necsa), which would see the Chinese funding skills development for South Africans at Chinese universities and institutions in nuclear and other specialised forms of energy.

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