* Japanese and S.Korean firms could keep lid on prices
* One of the largest nuclear contracts after Fukushima
* S.Africa looking to grow jobs, expand technology
By Agnieszka Flak and Jon Herskovitz
JOHANNESBURG, March 8 (Reuters) – South Africa will
come to the rescue of a nuclear industry, still struggling for
customers a year after Japan’s Fukushima disaster, with a tender
for one of the world’s biggest atomic power deals.
Firms from France, the United States, Japan, South Korea,
China and Russia have been lining up for years for a chance to
win the contract worth between 400 billion rand ($52.3 billion)
and a trillion rand($130.8 billion).
Chances to build reactors have grown fewer after the
Fukushima accident, with many developed states trying to wean
themselves off nuclear.
“It has become close to a buyers market and not a sellers
market, which it was before Fukushima,” said H. Holger Rogner,
section head of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s
planning and economic studies section.
South African officials expect to open the bidding in the
next few months for 9,600 megawatts of nuclear power – or about
the normal output of six reactors. Africa’s largest economy is
operating on razor thin electricity margins and needs the power
to grow its energy-intensive mining sector and manufacturing.
Continued…
