Kuwait has signed a 20-year agreement with France to develop the Gulf state's nuclear industry, beefing up the Gulf states' leadership of an Arab drive to develop nuclear power that will reshape the region's energy policy. The United Arab Emirates sealed a $20.4 billion deal in December for the construction of four 1,400-megawatt nuclear power plants with a consortium led by South Korea's state-owned utility Korea Electric Power Corp. Westinghouse of the United States is part of the group. The Korean corporation is one of the world's leading nuclear power specialists and operates 20 reactors worldwide. Kuwait held talks with Areva of France, a major nuclear energy company that had hoped to win the emirates deal with the personal backing of President Nicolas Sarkozy, who visited Abu Dhabi in May 2009 to open a military base. Kuwait's deal “is an intergovernmental agreement for cooperation between the French and Kuwait governments to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,” Bernard Bigot, chairman of France's Atomic Energy Commission, told Kuwait's Parliament on Jan. 16. The emirates' first reactor is scheduled to start up in 2017. South Korea will also provide Jordan with its first nuclear plant by 2014. Egypt, the Arab world's most populous nation, plans to build four nuclear stations. In June, Cairo signed an agreement with Russia, which is building a nuclear reactor for Iran, that cleared the way for Moscow's involvement in building Egypt's nuclear power industry. The first plant is slated to be constructed on the Mediterranean coast at a cost of $1.5 billion. The emirates wants to be the first Gulf state to develop a civil nuclear program, largely to meet rising demand for electricity and for desalination plants, which provide the Gulf nations' water. The emirates' oil reserves, primarily controlled by Abu Dhabi, are steadily declining and it does not produce enough natural gas to meet growing demand. Abu Dhabi has emerged from the global economic meltdown in good shape and current estimates are that its economic growth will continue, with energy consumption more than doubling in the next decade, from 15.5 gigawatts to 40GW. According to the World Nuclear Association, demand for energy in the GCC is increasing by 10 percent each year.
