Saudi Arabia may enrich uranium for nuclear plants

Saudi Arabia may mine and enrich uranium to fuel power plants if it embarks on a civilian nuclear energy program, a consultant preparing a draft nuclear strategy for the Kingdom said. Saudi Arabia would want to play a role in as many of the stages of generating nuclear power as possible eventually, said David Cox, president for energy at the UK branch of Finnish management consultancy Poyry. Enrichment could happen there and the same with mining uranium..., Cox said in a telephone interview with Reuters. But outsourcing will happen initially. Earlier this month, King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy appointed Poyry to help prepare a draft of the national vision and high-level strategy in the area of nuclear and renewable energy. The Kingdom instructed Poyry to evaluate the economic and technical feasibility of its involvement in all stages of the nuclear power generation cycle, Cox said. The UAE became the first country in the Gulf to embark upon a nuclear power generation program last year. But the UAE decided from an early stage to import fuel for the plants, as it sought to reassure the international community it had no military intentions with its program. The UAE and the US signed a nuclear cooperation agreement and US firms bid for contracts to build its nuclear fleet. Saudi Arabia saw power demand grow by more than 8 percent last year. Total demand was expected to grow to more than 60,000 megawatt (MW) by 2020 from around 40,000 MW current capacity. Without reducing the rate of energy consumption growth, the Kingdom could see oil available for export drop some 3 million barrels per day (bpd) to less than 7 million bpd in 2028, Khalid Al-Falih, the chief executive of Saudi Aramco, said earlier this year.