SA sidesteps NDP with $10bn Russia nuclear deal

[miningmx.com] – IN an apparent rebuff of warnings issued by South Africa’s centrepiece National Development Plan (NDP), the country’s government has signed a deal with Russia to install 9,600MW of nuclear energy by 2030.

Reuters reported the deal, which was announced on the sidelines of a International Atomic Energy conference in Vienna, would total $10bn or R111bn in investment. Up to eight nuclear power units would create thousands of jobs in South Africa, it said.

“I am sure that co-operation with Russia will allow us to implement our ambitious plans for the creation by 2030 of 9,6GW of new nuclear capacities based on modern and safe technologies,” said Tina Joematt-Petersson, South African energy minister.

The announcement is not a complete surprise as the Voice of Russia in November last year was quoted as saying a deal on nuclear power in South Africa had been struck with government.

More recently, Joematt-Pettersson said in her budget speech on July 21 that “nuclear expansion option is a central feature in our future energy mix”.

However, the planned investment comes against warnings by the National Planning Commission which drafted the NDP – a document setting down principles for the country’s economic future – that South Africa should think twice about nuclear energy.

This was in the wake of the discovery of shale gas as well as the likelihood that slower than anticipated economic growth lessened the need for rapid increase in power supply capacity – a view that seemed to be captured in the updated Integrated Resource Plan (IRP).

Omphi Aphan, deputy director-general of policy and planning in the energy department, said the updated IRP, which sets down a pathway for South Africa’s future energy mix,
found no requirement for nuclear power until after 2025.

Cited in Business Day, Aphan said the updated IRP “… is a robust, flexible approach based on smaller investments rather than the big lumpy ones we have got used to”.

Joematt-Pettersson said the agreement, which was with Russia’s Rosatom, “… opens up the door for South Africa to access Russian technologies, funding, infrastructure, and provides proper and solid platform for future extensive collaboration”.

Rosatom director-general Sergey Kirienko was quoted by Reuters as saying the proposed investment in nuclear technology could create thousands of jobs and create orders worth $10bn to “local industrial enterprises”. Reuters added, however, that it was not clear if Kirienko was referring to Russia or South Africa.

The agreement with South Africa comes barely a week after Russian trade minister, Denis Manturov, shook hands with Robert Mugabe’s government in Zimbabwe for a $1.6bn platinum mine and smelter development.

“The priority for us is the Darwendale Platinum Project,’ Manturov was quoted by Bloomberg News to have said. Digging for the metal in Zimbabwe was the “beginning of our bi-lateral cooperation,’ he said.