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Nigeria ‘Has Roadmap For First Nuclear Plant In Mid-2020s’

By David Dalton
29 May 2018

29 May (NucNet): Nigeria has a roadmap that lays out plans for it to have its first commercial nuclear power plants by the mid-2020s and “three more in five to 10 years”, according to the head of the Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission, Simon Pesco Mallam.

Mr Mallam told the west African country’s Guardian newspaper that partnering with Russia to build the first four plants is a possibility. He said: “We have a good agreement with Russia, but we have not signed any contractual agreements yet. We have signed operational agreements, project development agreements, but not any commercial contractual agreements.”

“Some newspapers have been claiming that we signed a $20bn contract with Russia. But I want to tell you categorically that this is not true. We have only a cooperation agreement with Russia, and we are hoping that if all works well, we would develop the infrastructure and eventually sign a contractual agreement with them,” he said.

According to reports, Nigeria began talks with Russia’s state atomic energy corporation, Rosatom in April 2015 to collaborate on the design, construction and operation of four nuclear power plants by 2035, the first of which was planned to be in operation by 2025.

In October 2017 Rosatom said it had signed a number of agreements on the construction and operation of a nuclear power station and a nuclear research centre in Nigeria.

Earlier reports in Nigerian media said sites had been chosen for the country’s first nuclear power stations in Kogi state in central Nigeria and Akwa Ibom state on the country’s south coast.

In 2015, the IAEA carried out a 10-day mission to review the emergency preparedness and response framework in Nigeria.

Nigeria has no commercial nuclear units yet but operates a low-power research reactor at the Centre for Energy Research and Training at Ahmadu. Russia and Nigeria signed their first intergovernmental agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation in 2009.

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