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Jordan to Sign Nuclear-Cooperation Deals With Three More Countries in 2010
Jordan will sign nuclear cooperation agreements with three countries this year and hopes to reach one with the U.S. soon after, the head of the kingdom’s atomic commission said.
“Jordan is due to sign three agreements on nuclear cooperation with Japan, Romania and the Czech Republic by the end of 2010,” Khalid Touqan, chairman of the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission, said today in an interview in Amman.
The kingdom, which is mostly covered by desert and relies almost entirely on imports for its energy needs, is turning to nuclear power to meet increasing electricity demand. The country plans to build reactors by 2019 and has signed agreements with eight countries including Russia, China, France and the U.K.
Jordan initialed in 2008 a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. and is currently negotiating a full cooperation agreement “which we hope will be signed in the near future,” Touqan said.
The commission and Worley Parsons, Australia’s biggest engineering company, will hold talks until then with the pre- selected groups of Canadian, French, Japanese and Russian bidders, he said.
The commission preselected three reactor technologies on May 12: Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.’s Enhanced CANDU 6 (EC6), Russia’s ZAO Atomstroyexport’s AES-92 VVER-1000 and “ATMEA1,” proposed by Paris-based Atmea, a 50-50 joint venture between France’s Areva SA and Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.
Areva, the world’s largest maker of reactors, signed agreements with Jordan this year for the protection of the planned nuclear installations and the exploration and mining of uranium in the kingdom.
Jordan estimates it has 65,000 tons of uranium deposits and expects annual production of 2,000 tons.
To contact the reporter on this story: Nayla Razzouk in Amman at nrazzouk2@bloomberg.net
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