UAE Awards $20 Billion Nuclear Contract to Korea

UAE Awards $20 Billion Nuclear Contract to Korea

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2009-12-27/u-a-e-awards-20-billion-nuclear-contract-to-korea-update3-.html

A South Korean group led by Korea Power Electric Corp. won a $20 billion contract to build four nuclear plants in the United Arab Emirates, the second-biggest Arab economy.

Korea Power, a state-run utility that supplies almost all the power in South Korea also known as KEPCO, won the U.A.E.’s first nuclear power plant order together with Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co., Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., Samsung C&T Corp. and Westinghouse Electric Co., it said in a statement today.

“The KEPCO team is best equipped to fulfill the government’s partnership requirements in this ambitious program,” Khaldoon Khalifa al-Mubarak, chairman of Emirates Nuclear Energy Corp., or ENEC, said in a separate statement. “The nature of this project will require a partnership that endures for nearly 100 years.”

The U.A.E., the fourth-biggest producer among the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, is turning to nuclear power to meet growing electricity demand as the country’s infrastructure investments use up domestic natural-gas supplies. Power demand in the nation will double to 40,000 megawatts by 2020, Anwar Gargash, the minister of state for foreign affairs, said Nov. 16.