Nigeria In Talks With Russia To Build Nuclear Power Plants

NIGERIA is in talks with Russia’s state-owned Rosatom to build nuclear power plants in the country.

“We have an intergovernmental agreement with NIGERIA, but no concrete decisions have been made,” a Rosatom spokesman said.

One nuclear power plant COSTSbetween $5 billion to $8 billion, a source at the company said.

Chief Executive of the NIGERIA Atomic Energy Commission, Franklin Erepamo Osaisai, said on their website that Nigeria has no experience in developing and operating nuclear power plants but has a gamma facility and small reactors producing around 30 kilowatts for research,  adding that nuclear power will guarantee long-term energy supply.

80 percent of Nigeria’s power plants are gas-fired.

Rosatom has a contract to build a new plant in Hungary and has agreed to build reactors in India and Kazakhstan. It is also planning to build more reactors in Iran in addition to the Russia-built Bushehr plant, Iran’s first nuclear facility, launched in 2011.

Nigeriahas INSTALLED power capacity that fluctuates between around 6,000 to just over 7,000 MW, according to the transmission company.

Nigeria broke up its monopoly on power generation and distribution by privatising the sector two-years ago, hoping to attract foreign INVESTORS. But the amount of power produced has stagnated at around half total capacity.

Some of the older plants, sold in October 2013, are in dire need of an upgrade while the fledgling generating firms lacking the cash as distributors struggle with non-paying consumers and inadequate gas supplies required to keep the plants running.