Nawah Energy Company, the company charged with operating the UAE's first nuclear plant, has announced the signing of a couple of long term maintenance contracts for the facility.
The company said that it had signed a long-term maintenance & service agreement with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) and Korea Electric Power Corporation's Plant Service & Engineering Company (KPS) to support maintenance of four APR1400 reactor units at the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant.
A separate announcement said that a maintenance service agreement had also been signed with Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction (DHIC), which covers both maintenance services and manpower for the plant.
KHNP is a subsidiary of Korea Electric Power Co (KEPCO), which is a joint venture partner in Nawah Energy Company alongside the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation.
A KEPCO-led consortium was first awarded a $20.4 billion contract to build the UAE's first nuclear plant back in 2009, with a view to a total of $40 billion worth of contracts (including maintenance deals) eventually being signed with Korean firms. A groundbreaking ceremony at the plant, which is in Al Dhafra , took place in 2011 with a view to open in 2017. Last year, Nawah Energy Company said that after completing a "complete operational readiness review" it now expected operations for the first of the plant's reactors to begin "between the end of 2019 and early 2020".
Statements issued on Monday regarding the contract win did not update on the plant's launch date, other than stating that overall completion of the plant's four units currently stands at above 93 percent.
KHNP already handles maintenance for the Shin Kori 3 and 4 nuclear energy plants in South Korea, which are reference plants for the Barakah facility.
