The Department of Energy (DoE) confirmed on Tuesday that an ‘Inter-Governmental Framework Agreement on Nuclear Cooperation’ had been signed with France as part of the “preparatory phase for the possible deployment of French nuclear technology in South Africa”.

In a far more tightly-worded statement than had been released following the signing in September of a similar agreement with Russia and Rosatom, the department said that the agreement built on the “more than 40 years of cooperation between South Africa and France, as symbolised by the Koeberg nuclear power plant”.

The agreement was signed in Paris by South Africa’s Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson and France’s Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius and reportedly dealt with such areas as skills development, localisation of nuclear technology, as well as research and development in South Africa.

A similar agreement was concluded with South Korea last year and Joemat-Pettersson indicated that South Africa would “proceed to sign similar agreements with the remaining nuclear vendor countries in preparation for the roll-out of 9.6 GW nuclear new build programme”.

Besides Russia, France and South Korea, it was expected that South Africa would seek to conclude agreements with China, Japan and the US during the preparatory phase, which the DoE hoped to wrap up by year-end.

No mention was made about making the contents of the latest agreement public, with the DoE having indicated previously that it would not release the details of the agreement with Russia and Rosatom for fear of prejudicing the early signatories ahead of a procurement process.

But Joemat-Pettersson reaffirmed that the agreement with France “paves the way for establishing a nuclear procurement process”.

It was not yet certain, though, what form such a process could take with DoE officials having suggested that it might not follow an open-tender design. However, they also promised that the procurement would be "fair, competitive and cost effective”.