By: Keith Campbell
Engineering News
Should Russian State-owned nuclear group Rosatom be a winner in the South African programme to build new nuclear power plants (NPPs), it would be willing to integrate South African companies into its global supply chain for its international projects. This would be in addition to localisation contracts placed to supply NPPs built in South Africa.
Rosatom international business head Alexey Kalininhas pointed out that only 15% of the value of NPPs built by his company outside Russia went to Russian suppliers. Some 30% to 40% went to local suppliers in the country in which the NPP was being built, and 45% to 50% went to global suppliers. Currently, Rosatom¹s international (that is, non-Russian) order book for the period 2011 to 2030 is worth $290-billion. Of this, $145-billion will be accounted for by civil engineering and construction, $17.4-billion by the manufacture and supply of turbine and generator equipment, another $17.4-billion by the manufacture and supply of valves, pumps and piping, $26-billion will be for electrical equipment, another $17.4-billion will be for infor-mation and communication systems, $8.7-billion for air cooling systems and $14.5-billion for ³other equipment².
The value of the specialist nuclear components and systems (reactors, and so on), which will be supplied only by Russian companies (many of them members of the Rosatom group) will be $43.4-billion. This would be the only sector in which South African companies would not be able to compete. In particular, Rosatom would consider South African companies as partners in NPP projects in Africa, for which the Russian group intends to compete. The World Nuclear Association reports that Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia and Uganda are interested in nuclear energy.
Of these, Egypt has well-developed plans for NPPs but has not yet made a decision on whether to go ahead with the programme or not, while Morocco and Nigeria are developing plans. Of the other African countries, Algeria, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Namibia and Tunisia are discussing nuclear as a serious policy option. Senegal seems to be more advanced in considering nuclear than Algeria and other countries, but less advanced than Morocco and Nigeria. Uganda is in the early stages of looking at the nuclear option.
Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Libya, Morocco and Nigeria all have small nuclear research reactors. Egypt also has an Atomic Energy Authority (set up in 1955 as the Atomic Energy Commission) and a Nuclear Power Plants Authority (established in 1976). Decision The country has a programme to build four NPPs, but bids were put on hold last year owing to the political upheaval in the country. A decision on the future of the programme will have to wait until after the country¹s Presidential elections later this month and perhaps for the passing of the country¹s new constitution.
Meanwhile, France and Russia are cooperating on the development of fourth- generation fast breeder reactors (FBRs). FBRs are so-called because they use fast neutrons to trigger nuclear fission and because a by-product of their operation is the production of plutonium, which can be extracted and used as fuel in other reactors. FBRs are also much more efficient in their use of uranium than other types of fission reactors. This cooperation follows the signing of a bilateral declaration of cooperation in nuclear power by the two countries in November. Rosatom has already begun to use French turbines in NPPs it builds.
Edited by: Martin Zhuwakinyu
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