The construction of the El Dabaa nuclear power plant (NPP) in Egypt with the assistance of the Russian state corporation Rosatom is proceeding according to schedule and even ahead of schedule.
This was announced on December 2 by the director of the NPP construction project, vice president of Rosatom’s engineering division Atomstroyexport Alexey Kononenko at the forum “Development of the Nuclear Industry in Egypt” in Cairo.
“We are proceeding according to schedule, there are some local advances. For example, we installed a melt catcher (melt localization device – Ed.) at the fourth power unit ahead of schedule – four months earlier,” RIA Novosti reports him as saying.
Kononenko noted the positive speed of construction. According to him, construction and installation work is currently underway at each of the four El Dabaa power units.
Russia and Egypt signed an intergovernmental agreement on the construction of the El Dabaa nuclear power plant in November 2015. Work on the first power unit of the NPP began in July 2022, and on the second – in November.
Later, on August 31, 2023, Rosatom received a license to build the fourth power unit. On November 19, installation of a melt localization device (melt catcher) – one of the main elements of passive safety systems – began at the construction site of the second power unit.
The NPP will have four power units with Russian VVER-1200 reactor units. The total capacity of the station will be almost 4.8 GW. The construction of all four units is planned to be completed by 2028-2029.
On October 25, Rosatom received an offer from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to build a second nuclear power plant in the country. On October 7, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that Russia is studying the possibility of building a second nuclear power plant in Turkey at the Sinop site and is preparing an optimal solution for this project.