Nuclear power plants to be operational

The United Arab Emirates' nuclear regulator plans to issue an international tender to buy nuclear fuel needed to begin operating its nuclear plants. The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation will agree to contracts for obtaining the uranium, converting it and enriching the fuel for use in its plants' nuclear reactors. ENEC was expected to complete its negotiations for fuel and sign final contracts by the first quarter of 2012. It is expected that the contracts will meet the amount of imported fuel needed for the future operational period and for the following 15 years. It expects nuclear energy to eventually account for 25 per cent of its power requirements. Despite ranking as the world's third-largest oil exporter, the UAE finds it hard to meet power demand growth as its economy expands. It had embarked on a nuclear programme to meet that demand rather than burn more oil, and export less crude, at its power plants. Korea Electric Power Corp (015760.KS: Quote), which led a consortium that won the UAE nuclear deal in 2009, plans to build four 1,400 megawatt reactors on the coast of Abu Dhabi.