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South Korea Seeks Accord With U.S. by 2012 to Reprocess Spent Nuclear Fuel
South Korea aims to reach an accord with the U.S. by 2012 that could allow the Asian nation to recycle spent nuclear fuel for “peaceful” use to produce electricity, Minister of Knowledge Economy Choi Kyung Hwan said.
The two countries are discussing revising an agreement expiring in 2014 that bans South Korea from recycling uranium, which can also be used to make atomic weapons. South Korea, which plans to build more reactors to increase the share of nuclear power generation from about 40 percent, is running out of space to store the spent fuel.
“I hope that we can get recycling spent fuel as part of the agreement,” Choi, whose ministry oversees energy and industrial policies, said yesterday in an interview in Washington where he is attending a meeting of energy officials.
The current agreement was signed in 1956 and revised in 1974, the Munhwa Ilbo newspaper reported April 14. Washington is concerned that allowing South Korea to process the fuel for re- use may discourage North Korea from giving up its weapons program, the New York Times reported July 14.
“South Korea will pursue only peaceful and commercial use of nuclear power and we are against any military use,” Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan told reporters in Seoul today.
Asia’s fourth-largest crude oil importer seeks to buy overseas fields to reduce dependence on imports and also plans to increase exports of nuclear reactors, Choi said.
“We are trying to develop alternatives to oil and will continue to pursue acquisitions of promising oil and gas companies,” the economy minister said.
BP Assets
Choi declined to say whether South Korea is interested in buying assets from BP Plc. The London-based company, seeking to sell about $10 billion in assets to pay for the cleanup of an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and related fines, agreed to sell assets in North America and Egypt to Apache Corp. yesterday for $7 billion.
South Korea, which imports almost all of its energy and minerals needs, is competing with China and India in the search for raw materials after crude oil fell from an all-time high in 2008, making assets cheaper. State-run Chinese companies spent a record $32 billion last year acquiring energy and resources assets overseas.
The country wants to boost sales of its atomic power reactors after winning an $18.6 billion order from the United Arab Emirates in December, Choi said.
The nation emerged as a rival in the global nuclear-power plant industry after state-run Korea Electric Power Corp. beat General Electric Co. and Areva SA last year to an order to build four reactors in the U.A.E. South Korea said in June it may reach an agreement by the end of the year to build atomic generators in Turkey.
To contact the reporters on this story: Christopher Martin in New York at cmartin11@bloomberg.net; Shinhye Kang in Seoul at skang24@bloomberg.net.
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