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▲ President Moon Jae-in visits the construction site of the Baraka nuclear power plant in the UAE on March 26, 2018, and takes a commemorative photo with King Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in front of the first Korean-built Baraka nuclear power plant. Blue House Facebook |
[에너지경제신문 전지성 기자] With the recent commercial operation of Unit 1 Baraka Nuclear Power Plant in the United Arab Emirates, expectations for additional exports of overseas nuclear power plants within the Moon Jae-in government’s term are growing.
The Blue House announced on the 7th that President Moon Jae-in sent a letter to the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan (UAE) congratulating the start of commercial operation of the Baraka nuclear power plant.
Blue House spokesman Kang Min-seok said that President Moon gave meaning to the Baraka nuclear power plant as an icon of UAE innovation and a symbol of friendship between Korea and the UAE. He said he wished.
The Baraka nuclear power plant project is a project that built four Korean next-generation nuclear power plants APR1400 (total power generation capacity of 5600 ㎿) in the Baraka area, 270 km west of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE. KEPCO won the project in December 2009 at the time of the Lee Myung-bak administration and started construction in July 2012.
It was a super-large nuclear power plant project with an export scale of 18.6 billion dollars (about 21 trillion won). Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power has estimated that 220,000 jobs, including 140,000 in the construction sector, will be created locally due to the four Baraka nuclear power plants, and the export effect will be about 21 trillion won, and 72 trillion won will be generated as a follow-up effect.
At that time, the first nuclear power plant construction bid in the Middle East competed with France and Japan, which are advanced nuclear power plants, and KEPCO produced the first export in the history of the nuclear power plant industry in recognition of its nuclear power plant construction capabilities and safety operation technology.
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▲ A view of the UAE Baraka nuclear power plant. |
This project is Korea’s first and last nuclear power plant export record to date. The Moon Jae-in administration is also pursuing a nuclear power plant policy in Korea, but the industry is drawing attention on whether to receive additional orders as it is in a position to actively support the export of nuclear power plants abroad.
President Moon visited Kazakhstan in 2019 and said, “Korea has shown high prowess and stability while operating nuclear power plants (nuclear power plants) for 40 years. If there is an opportunity to participate (in Kazakhstan’s nuclear power plant project), we hope that there will be an opportunity to participate in the export of nuclear power plants abroad,” he said. Has shown a strong will. However, it is unfortunate that the Moon Jae-in administration has yet to receive additional orders for overseas nuclear power plant construction projects to reach the end of the four-year term. It is unclear whether the company will be able to achieve specific additional overseas nuclear power plant orders within the remaining 1 year of his tenure.
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Saudi Arabia and the Czech Republic are actively engaged in order-taking activities, but they are still’empty’
Currently, KEPCO is competing with the United States, China, France and Russia by participating in the construction of the second 1.4 gigawatt (GW) nuclear power plant worth $12 billion (approximately 13 trillion won) ordered by Saudi Arabia. Initially, Saudi Royal Nuclear Power & Renewable Energy Source (KACARE) decided to infer two or three secondary reserve operators (short list) for the main contract for the nuclear power plant project by March 2019, but even after two years, there is no news from the local area. There is no situation.
KEPCO said, “There was no official comment from the Saudi side about the delay in the announcement of the reserve business,” and said, “We have no choice but to wait.”
KHNP is also actively working to win orders for nuclear power plants in the Czech Republic and Egypt.
President Jung Jae-hoon recently flew to Egypt despite the inconvenience of self-isolation for two weeks following the Corona 19 incident to participate in the Eldava nuclear power plant project in Egypt, which is built by JSC ASE, a subsidiary of Russian state-run nuclear power plant Rosatom.
President Jung visited the Petrojet headquarters in Cairo, Egypt on the 16th of last month (local time) and signed a cooperation agreement with Petrojet. With the signing of the agreement, KEPCO E&C, Hyundai E&C, and Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction, including KHNP, will promote cooperation with local companies in Egypt based on their ability to carry out nuclear power plant construction projects proven in domestic and UAE Baraka nuclear power plants.
Also, fierce competition with nuclear power plants such as the United States, France, and Russia is expected even for the Czech nuclear power plant order, which KHNP is participating in. After 12 months of examination, the Czech Nuclear Safety Authority issued a license approving the construction of two new reactors on the site of the Dukovany nuclear power plant.
In June of last year, KHNP formed an organization dedicated to bidding for’Team Korea’ with Doosan Heavy Industries, Daewoo E&C, Korea Electric Power Technology, and KEPCO Fuel to prepare for the Czech order win. President Jung Jae-hoon is focusing his efforts on winning orders by visiting the Czech Republic in person and selling nuclear power plants despite the coronavirus outbreak last year. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy also launched the’Nuclear Power Export Advisory Committee’ on the 4th to support exports. After the nuclear power plant policy has eliminated domestic work, nuclear power plant parts makers are in danger of going bankrupt, so they decided to seek a way out abroad.
The government and KHNP are confident that they have gained an advantage in the order before, thanks to local sales of nuclear power plants, but competition with the United States is unlikely to be easy. This is because the US, which declared the’revival of the nuclear power industry’, has been actively exporting nuclear power plants in recent years.
In the’Nuclear Power Strategy Vision’ announced in January of this year, the US announced that it will rebuild the nuclear power plant industry by extending the lifespan of existing nuclear power plants, developing next-generation nuclear power plants, and expanding the nuclear power plant supply chain. Thanks to the government’s policy to support nuclear power plants, the US is expanding its presence in the global market by spurring exports of nuclear power plants to Poland and Romania as well as the Czech Republic. This is in contrast to the situation in Korea, where the competitiveness of the nuclear power industry is deteriorating due to the post-nuclear policy.
Meanwhile, the nuclear power plant industry is calling for a reexamination of the nuclear power plant policy, saying that it needs steady business performance in Korea for overseas export. An official from a nuclear power plant said, “As new nuclear power plants such as Shin Hanul Units 3 and 4 have been removed, the work of nuclear power plant equipment and design companies has been cut off.” .