CANE - Coalition Against Nuclear Energy South Africa

 Russia Seeks Investment in South Africa Nuclear Power

  23/2/2007

 PRETORIA - Russia is seeking investment in new nuclear power stations and
 joint uranium mining ventures in South Africa, Russia’s natural resources
 minister said on Thursday.

 Yuri Trutnev would not specify how much money Russia was willing to spend in
 South Africa, which wants to ensure stable energy supplies for its booming
 economy and ease concerns over power shortages.

 “Exactly as much as would be needed if we hopefully win a tender,” he told a
 news conference, when asked how much money his country was prepared to pour
 into nuclear energy and mining in Africa’s biggest economy.

 South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said the two sides
 were still in early discussions on the issue. “We agreed and Russia is
 willing to work with us right from the mining right up to nuclear energy,
 right through the chain. So if we ask them to also do nuclear stations, they
 are willing,” she said after talks with Trutnev.

 “We are only now going to get into the specifics but we have agreed that we
 will cooperate right through, so those details will be worked out as we go
 along.”

 Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia’s atomic energy agency (Rosatom), who is
 accompanying Trutnev, told Russia’s Interfax news agency on Wednesday that
 the South African market “is open for us”.

 Russian officials said state-run run Tekhsnabexport (Tenex), Russian firm
 Renova and South Africa’s Harmony Gold had signed a memorandum to boost
 cooperation during the visit.

 Tenex was also seeking to extend to 2020 the terms of a contract under which
 Tenex supplies low-enriched uranium to South Africa, Interfax reported.

 South Africa, which operates Africa’s only nuclear power station, said this
 month it planned to build a second nuclear power station in a bid to boost
 energy supplies as power demand soars.

 President Vladimir Putin said last year during his first trip to the African
 state that Russia had signed a deal to supply fuel to South Africa’s Koeberg
 nuclear power plant, about 50 km (31 miles) outside Cape Town.

 Russia is reorganising its civilian nuclear sector as it seeks to widen
 sales of nuclear technology abroad, expanding into the energy-hungry markets
 of Asia and Africa.

 South Africa’s mining minister, Buyelwa Sonjica, told Reuters on Tuesday
 that major producers in South Africa and Russia were in talks about
 cooperating to process uranium for sale on the international market.

 South Africa has earmarked uranium as a strategic mineral and will start
 stockpiling the sought-after nuclear fuel, in part to ensure it can power an
 ambitious multi-billion rand expansion of its nuclear power industry.

 http://www.dfa.gov.za/docs/speeches/2007/dzum0223.htm

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