Rosatom expects to receive permission to build NPP in Egypt this summer

MOSCOW. April 18 (Interfax) - Atomstroyexport (ASE), part of Rosatom's engineering division, expects to receive permission to build the El-Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant in Egypt this summer, the company said in a statement following a visit to the site by Rosatom First Deputy General Director for Nuclear Energy and ASE President Alexander Lokshin.

"We expect that a permit for construction will be obtained this summer, and work of the main period of NPP construction will start. For us, this is the key event of the year, hence it is being prepared meticulously," Lokshin was quoted as saying in the statement.

"The foundation pit of unit No. 1 is fully ready for the start of work on the arrangement of concrete preparation for the buildings of the nuclear island, which will begin in the near future," the statement said. Preparatory work is continuing that includes building a seaport for the receipt of large and heavy equipment, it said.

Rosatom CEO Alexei Likhachev said earlier that the company was expecting to receive one or possibly two licenses for the construction of nuclear power plants in Egypt in 2022. The pouring of the first concrete could tentatively begin in July, Likhachev said.

The Egyptian Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority has been planning to issue a license for the construction of the first two power units of the El-Dabaa NPP in the second half of this year.

An intergovernmental agreement on the construction of the NPP was concluded in November 2015. Construction of all four units of the NPP is to be finished in 2028-2029.