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China Confident Of Winning $80B South Africa Nuclear Power Bid

China Confident Of Winning $80B South Africa Nuclear Power Bid

From China Daily

Industry officials are confident of China being the frontrunner to win the right to build South Africa’s new generation of nuclear power stations.

“We think we are likely to win the bid, after preparing all the documents for the tender,” Zheng Mingguang, head of the Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute, a high-tech arm of the State Nuclear Power Technology Corp.

“The nuclear energy industry also involves other issues, so we can’t set any date yet on the final bidding process,” he said.

The country hopes to land the contract using its CAP1400 nuclear technology, which is designed by SNERDI and based on the AP1000 reactor technology developed by the United States-based Westinghouse Electric Co LLC.

South Africa currently operates the continent’s only nuclear power plant, near Cape Town, but the country is currently facing chronic electricity shortages.

The Pretoria government invited tenders in July for an estimated $80 billion contract to build four nuclear reactors - the largest contract in the country’s history - which attracted widespread interest, including from State Nuclear Power Technology Corp, Russia’s state atomic agency Rosatom and French nuclear firms.

The Chinese CAP1400 nuclear technology is claimed to have significant cost, reliability and security advantages over rival reactors.

Read more at  China Daily