India and UAE sign historic civil nuclear agreement
Barakah Nuclear Power Plant is the first commercial one in the Arab world; it is located in Al Dhafra on the Arabian Gulf.
The nuclear world saw a new development on Monday (9 September) as India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) inked their first civil nuclear agreement. This deal, which paves the way for collaboration on a commercial nuclear facility, was made during the visit of Sheikh Khalid bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, to India.
Fundamental to this partnership is a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the confidential Indian Nuclear Power Corporation (NPCIL) and the Emeriti Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) for ‘operation and maintenance’ of the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant. Barakah Nuclear Power Plant is the first commercial one in the Arab world; it is located in Al Dhafra on the Arabian Gulf.
The plant comprises of four APR-1400 pressurised water reactors – each with the clean electricity generating capacity of 1,400MW – and its construction is anticipated to provide 25 percent of the UAE’s electricity requirements in the epoch of the next sixty years.
Leveraging four APR-1400 pressurized water reactors, each with the capacity of producing up to 1,400MW of clean electricity, the plant is expected to contribute to 25 Percent of the UAE’s power requirements for the next six decades.
Constructed by Korea Electric Power Corporation for $20bn, Barakah has achieved full fleet as its fourth reactor went online yesterday 5 September. Some diplomatic insiders have echoed that the latest deal that saw India’s NPCIL contracting a nuclear deal with the ENEC is revolutionary. It originates from an understanding reached in 2015 when PM Narendra Modi visited the UAE where both countries agreed to ‘ peacefully utilize nuclear energy ’ in areas of safety, health, agriculture, science and technology for example.
The NPCIL-ENEC agreement falls within the strategic framework of the UAE’s policy of increasing investments on nuclear energy. Whereas, NPCIL is a public sector unit company of India come under the department of atomic energy of India, ENEC is a fully owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Development Holding Company PJSC and completely owned subsidiary of the UAE government.
The NPCIL-ENEC MoU on nuclear cooperation is intended to improve operating and maintaining of nuclear power stations and procurement of nuclear products and services from India and vice versa, mutual investment and capacity development, the Ministry of External Affairs added.
Thus, civil nuclear cooperation which is envisaged between India and the UAE helps in the exchange of the nuclear technologies on friendless terms. They include generation of energy, the rules and regulation of generating energy safely, supply of nuclear fuel and controlling non proliferation of nuclear energy all over the world.
The civil nuclear initiative that aims at power production and other non-weapon purposes have similar bi-lateral ties with other dominant powers like United States, France, Japan, Russia etc which testifies to India’s emergence as a leading nuclear powerhouse in the world.
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