Egypt hopes to speed up construction of El Dabaa NPP - electricity minister

MOSCOW. Sept 25 (Interfax) - Egypt is hoping to speed up the construction of the El Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), Egyptian Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy Mahmoud Essmat said at the World Atomic Week forum.

"By the end of this year, we will be able to complete 40% of the construction scheduled for the El Dabaa NPP. This is significant progress. We hope to be able to accelerate this pace. Today, we began unloading the reactor vessel," Essmat said.

Earlier during World Atomic Week on Thursday, the unloading of the reactor vessel for power unit No. 1 of the NPP was launched.

State corporation Rosatom plans to launch procedures for starting up the reactors at the El Dabaa NPP in 2027, CEO Alexei Likhachev said in February. "We are supposed to move on to the start-up elements, start-up phases as early as 2027 and commission the first four reactor units before 2030," he said.

The design of the plant envisages four 1200-MW power units with VVER-1200 reactors.