APA – Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) This Friday, Ouagadougou and Moscow will sign a memorandum of understanding to implement the project.
Burkina Faso hopes to build a nuclear power station in the country by 2030, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Quarries, Simon-Pierre Boussim, said in Moscow on Thursday in his speech at Russian Energy Week, the ‘Agence d’information du Burkina’ (Burkina News Agency, AIB) reported, citing the Russian agency TASS.
Captain Ibrahim Traore’s project aims to solve the problem of energy shortages and boost the country’s industrialisation. The country’s electricity needs, estimated at over 500 megawatts, could triple by 2030.
Minister Boussim indicated that Ouagadougou had already begun cooperating with Russian companies in the energy sector.
A memorandum of understanding for the construction of a nuclear power station will be signed this Friday between the Ministry of Energy and Rosatom, the Russian federal atomic energy agency.
Yesterday, a prospecting committee for the development of nuclear power plants in Burkina Faso and the former Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO), Dr Lassina Zerbo, met in Ouagadougou to pave the way for “the successful implementation of the nuclear programme in Burkina Faso.”
At the end of these discussions, the participants intend to determine the prerequisites for the implementation of nuclear power plants, identify the technical, legal and environmental constraints and propose solutions.
At the end of July, the Head of State, Ibrahim Traore, told Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Russia-Africa summit how important it was for him to have a nuclear power plant in Burkina Faso as soon as possible, to cover the energy needs of the sub-region.
SD/te/fss/abj/APA