Egypt grants construction permit for third unit of nuclear power plant

The Egyptian Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority (ENRRA) has granted the construction permit for the third power unit of the nuclear plant in El-Dabaa.

“ENRRA has taken all procedures necessary to verify the availability of the maximum levels of safety measures for the nuclear project in El-Dabaa in accordance with the best international standards,” the authority said in a statement published on LinkedIn social media platform on Thursday.

ENRRA granted the Nuclear Power Plants Authority the construction permits for the first and second units in June and October 2022, respectively.

The construction of Egypt’s first nuclear plant by Russia’s state-owned Rosatom began in July last year and is anticipated to take until at least 2030, according to a March 2023 Reuters report.

The pouring of the first concrete for Unit 2 took place on 19 November 2022 while the same for Unit 1 took place in July 2022, according to past statements by the project’s contractor ROSATOM.

Last week, ROSATOM had announced that the first heavy and oversized equipment for the nuclear power plant, the core catcher for Unit 1, arrived at the construction site. The core catcher is a container in the shape of a steel cone which, in case of an emergency, securely retains the fragments of the molten core and prevents their discharge beyond the reactor building containment.

El-Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant (El-Dabaa NPP) is being built in the city of El-Dabaa, Matrouh province, on the Mediterranean coast, approximately 300 km North-West of Cairo. The NPP consists of four power units, 1,200 megawatts (MW) each, with VVER-1200 reactors (pressurised water reactor) of generation III+. The general designer and general contractor is ROSATOM Engineering Division.

(Writing by P Deol; Editing by Anoop Menon)

(anoop.menon@lseg.com)