France is seeking fresh nuclear energy contracts in the UAE after losing out on a bid to build the country's first reactors.
"If they have other plans we will obviously bid," said Pierre Lellouche, the French foreign trade minister. "There's plenty of room, it seems, for dozens of French firms."
In 2009, a French consortium led by Areva lost a bid to construct the UAE's first nuclear reactors. The contract went to a consortium led by Korea Electric Power Corporation.
But the Korean consortium is set to supply only the first three batches of the uranium that will fuel the four reactors in Abu Dhabi's Western Region, said Hamad al Kaabi, the UAE's permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
France, the UK, US and South Korea have signed nuclear co-operation agreements with the UAE. Those agreements form the foundation for technology and knowledge transfer in addition to opening supply routes for nuclear fuel, Mr al Kaabi said.
France has also sought to secure nuclear contracts in Jordan and Kuwait, which began laying the foundations for nuclear energy at the same time as the UAE.
Mr Lellouche cited France's legacy of nuclear power generation. "We are at the top of the league in this industry, particularly in terms of safety," he said.
Mr Lellouche met Dr Sultan al Jaber, the chief executive of Masdar, Abu Dhabi's clean-energy company, along with representatives from the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry before a planned visit to Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is evaluating the merits of adding nuclear power to a mostly fossil fuels energy mix to alleviate its chronic electricity shortages.
ayee@thenational.ae
The specs
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Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
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ELIO
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Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
