South Korea’s state-run utility firm Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) won a contract to operate a nuclear power plant that is under construction in the United Arab Emirates. The deal is expected to deliver $49.4 billion in sales over 60 years.

KEPCO on Thursday said it signed an agreement with Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (Enec) to operate a nuclear power plant in the U.A.E. for the next 60 years. The Korean utility firm in December 2009 won a deal to build four nuclear reactors with a combined capacity of 5,600 megawatts in the Middle Eastern country and the nuclear power plant is being built in Barakah, 270 kilometers west of Abu Dhabi, the capital of U.A.E. currently.

Industry watchers say the latest deal recognizes the utility firm’s capability to successfully operate the nuclear power plant, increasing the chance for the firm to win additional orders as the world’s sixth-best nation to have struck most nuclear power plant orders abroad.

This deal will enhance KEPCO’s value and increase the opportunity for the firm to enter other foreign nuclear power plant market, said Cho Hwan-eik, chief executive officer of KEPCO.

The construction of the four reactors is about 68-percent through. The first reactor will be completed in May next year and the fourth one is scheduled to be finished in 2020, ending the series of project. KEPCO is spearheading as the main contractor and other Korean firms including Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and Korea Plant Service & Engineering (KEPCO KPS) has teamed up, providing designing, construction, and operational support works, in the construction project.

In addition to the profits from the nuclear power plant construction, the utility firm reportedly will receive about 18 percent of the Enec’s electricity sales, and the total revenue that KEPCO could collect over the next 60 years is estimated at $49.4 billion, which is 2.7 times more than the amount, $18.6 billion earned from constructing the four reactors. The utility company also secured a stake in the Barakah nuclear power plant project on investment of $900 million.

The earning from running the reactors is expected to deliver economic effects equivalent to exporting 228,000 cars and 52 million mobile phones, said an unnamed KEPCO official. The operation deal is also predicted to create new jobs in operational support and repair and maintenance fields.

Separately, KEPCO and KEPCO KPS will soon sign a contract dispatching workers for nuclear power plant repair and maintenance over the next 10 years. The deal is expected to create up to 1,000 new overseas jobs every year, said the KEPCO official.

KEPCO has secured a long-term partnership to have Korea’s talented workforce to participate in not only the construction but also the operation of nuclear power plant, said Cho. “We will make the U.A.E. nuclear power plant the best project in the world through safe and reliable management of the plant in the following 60 years.”

By Kim Jung-hwan

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