El Dabaa project reports on construction progress

Thursday, 18 July 2024

El Dabaa will be Egypt's first nuclear power plant, and the first in Africa since South Africa's Koeberg was built nearly 40 years ago. The Rosatom-led project is about 320 kilometres north-west of Cairo and will comprise four VVER-1200 units, like those already in operation at the Leningrad and Novovoronezh nuclear power plants in Russia, and the Ostrovets plant in Belarus.

The four units are being built almost concurrently, with first concrete at unit 1 in July 2022, followed in turn by the others, concluding with first concrete at unit 4 in January this year.

The first tier of unit 1's inner containment was completed in May, and Rosatom says that its AEM-Spetsstal machine-building division has now manufactured and shipped to its industrial sites in Volgodonsk, Petrozavodsk and St Petersburg 75% of the metallurgical blanks - weighing over 650 tonnes - which will be used for the manufacture of key equipment including the reactor vessel and main circulation pipelines.

(Image: Rosatom)

Rosatom said AEM-Spetsstal "provides all the key operations of this stage: steelmaking, forging and pressing, heat treatment and mechanical processing. The blanks undergo several levels of careful control of the conformity of the metal properties with the specified parameters, determining the required level of reliability and safety of the equipment for the manufacture of which they will be used".

Another part of the same Rosatom division, Petrozavodskmash, has begun welding pipes for the main circulation pipeline for unit 1, which will ultimately weigh 276 tonnes.

Meanwhile, Amged El-Wakeel, chairman of Egypt's Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA), said that on 2 July, the crane known as the 'giant winch' had arrived on site. It has a maximum height of 156 metres and is capable of lifting up to 2000 tonnes. It arrived at Alexandria port by sea and was then transported in parts to the El Dabaa site to be installed.

A day earlier the core catcher for unit 3 had arrived by sea at El Dabaa from Russia. The three main parts for the reactor core trap had a total weight of 480 tonnes. El-Wakeel said that the new crane's first key job will be hoisting the reactor core catcher for unit 3 in place, which could happen in October.

(Image: NPPA)

The 6.1-metre diameter core catcher is a key part of the passive safety system for the VVER-1200 reactor -  its function is that "in case of an emergency, it securely retains the fragments of the molten core and prevents the discharge beyond the reactor building containment".

Under the 2017 contracts, Rosatom will not only build the plant, but will also supply Russian nuclear fuel for its entire life cycle. It will also assist Egyptian partners in training personnel and plant maintenance for the first 10 years of its operation. Rosatom is also contracted to build a special storage facility and supply containers for storing used nuclear fuel. Construction of the nuclear power plant began in July 2022.