Russia's State-owned nuclear corporation Rosatom is very willing to partner with South African companies should this country select the group to build new nuclear power plants (NPPs) here. These partnerships could include localisation, technology transfer and including them in the supply chains for NPPs being built by Rosatom elsewhere in the world. So assured Rosatom director-general Sergey Kirienko, in Johannesburg, on Monday.

"One of the peculiarities of nuclear is [it is] long term," he highlighted in his opening address at the Atomex Africa forum. It can take eight years to build a NPP and modern plants can operate for up to 80 years. "So these are long-term partnerships. We are prepared to actively participate in these projects  and provide our South African partners with all technologies."

Kirienko pointed out that Rosatom had already been working with South Africa, in areas such as nuclear fuel and radio isotopes. Furthermore, the Russian group was offering the latest 'third generation plus' NPP designs, which took the experiences at the tsunami-hit Fukushima NPP in Japan into account. He stressed that these designs were not just theoretical, but were currently being built.

"We are offering not only to build such power plants in South Africa, but also to cooperate to build the technological chain," he affirmed. "South Africa has a great reputation in the field of nuclear energy. It's not only [cooperation] to build new plants, but to build the whole technology chain for nuclear energy for peaceful use. [And] the training of South African students in Russia. ... It opens very good perspectives for South African companies to work in the building of power plants in African countries. A lot of African countries include plans to build [nuclear] power plants. And not only in Africa -- also in Latin America and Asia. We would be very happy to ask our new partners to join us in projects in third countries."

Kirienko argued that nuclear energy was one of the factors that allowed the safe development of the global economy. Furthermore, nuclear energy provided opportunities for scientific development and technological innovation. For these reasons, countries that could fulfill all their energy needs with other forms of energy were also investing in nuclear. One of these was Russia itself. "To support the development of countries, nuclear energy should be part of the energy balance," he stated.

Rosatom is currently building nine new NPPs in Russia and 19 more in other countries. In these other countries, Rosatom is busy working with local companies and involved in localisation programmes. South Africa's proposed NPP programme would allow localisation of between 40% and 60%, reported Kirienko. "Russia is prepared to provide preferential financing."