South Korea hopes to build nuclear power plants in Asia

Seoul - South Korea hopes to have gained a foothold in the global market for nuclear power plants by winning a milestone contract with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), South Korea's president said. The UAE said Sunday that it had chosen a South Korean-led consortium for a 20-billion-dollar deal to build four nuclear power plants to be completed by 2020 - the largest deal in the energy sector this year.

The South Koreans' safety record and competitive price were cited as giving them the edge over a General Electric-Hitachi Ltd team-up and a French consortium that included Electricite de France and Areva.

"I hope this will be a start to reviving the old Middle East boom of the 1970s when South Korean construction companies worked to build infrastructure of roads, dams and ports in the Middle East," President Lee Myung Bak was quoted as saying by the Yonhap News Agency.

Under the deal announced in Abu Dhabi, Korea Electric Power Corp is to lead a group that includes Westinghouse Electric Company, a US subsidiary of Japan's Toshiba Corp, in designing, building and helping to operate four 1,400-megawatt nuclear power plants for the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation.

Lee said he hoped the deal would help South Korea win orders from Asia. "This deal will also be a stepping stone for South Korea to build some of the 430 units to be built around the world until the end of 2030," Lee was quoted as saying.

South Korea is eying Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia as well as Jordan and Turkey as the next likely countries to build nuclear power plants.

"We are in talks with Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia to build nuclear power plants," Park Ki Chull, head of state-run Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co, was quoted as saying.

South Korea operates 20 nuclear power plants and has eight units under construction. "We are planning to construct about 10 units until 2030 so that we can generate 59 per cent of our electricity with nuclear power plants until then," Park said.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/301175,south-korea-hopes-to-build-nuclear-power-plants-in-asia.html.