How Is Riyadh Seeking to Improve the Civil Nuclear Energy Project?

Saudi Arabia is taking rapid steps to improve the civil nuclear energy sector, and to benefit from its technologies in various fields, although its ally, the United States, wants to limit this through peaceful ways.

With Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s attempt to revive this stalled project, Riyadh is talking about the possibility of a partnership with China in this regard.

However, many believe that Saudi Arabia is waiting for reactions from France and South Korea, and from Washington in particular.

 

New Contracts

The Intelligence Online revealed, in a report published on January 25, 2023, that the visit of French Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire to Riyadh will focus mainly on discussing the revival of the Saudi nuclear program.

During a television interview with the Al-Arabiya Saudi channel on January 29, 2023, Le Maire said that he is currently visiting Riyadh to discuss all sectors in which cooperation can be strengthened, such as the energy sector.

In the capital, Riyadh, on February 2, 2023, Saudi Minister of Energy Abdulaziz bin Salman discussed, with French Minister of Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna, prospects for cooperation in the peaceful uses of atomic energy and future opportunities in various fields of energy, including renewable energy, clean hydrogen, and electrical bonding.

The meeting included signing a “memorandum of understanding to set a framework for cooperation in the energy sector, which included encouraging cooperation between the two countries in the fields of electricity, renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy storage, and others.”

French President Emmanuel Macron had previously discussed with the Saudi Crown Prince the revival of the program during their meeting in Bangkok on November 18, 2022, within the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

The Intelligence Online expected that Luc Remont, CEO of Electricity of France (EDF), would accompany the French minister Le Maire to Riyadh, but the matter was not confirmed.

EDF is owned by the French state by more than 90%, and it will return to the competition for the civil nuclear energy project in Saudi Arabia.

In 2018, the kingdom revealed plans to build 16 reactors with an estimated budget of about $80 billion, but Riyadh was angry when EDF did not respect the condition that Saudi companies be included in its bid.

However, according to the magazine, this visit will help Paris return to Mohammed bin Salman’s nuclear projects.

 

American Caution

Amidst all this, it was believed that Mohammed bin Salman favored the tender submitted by the South Korean Korea Electric Power Company (KEPCO) among the three best bids submitted for the project.

Seoul made a lot of effort to obtain the deal, as at the World Economic Forum held in Davos on January 17, 2023, South Korean President Moon Jae-in told bin Salman that his country was ready to resume talks.

But since part of KIPCO’s technology is derived from the US manufacturing company (Westinghouse), KEPCO is subject to US export controls, which means that any such agreement between South Korea and Saudi Arabia will require the approval of the US Congress.

In 2018, 48 Saudi engineers, within the framework of cooperation and exchange of experiences between the two countries, started a joint project with the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) in Daejeon to prepare engineering designs for the SMART nuclear reactor in Saudi Arabia.

The cooperation includes extensive programs in various areas of nuclear energy, including specialized programs in reactor core design, fluid system design, mechanical design, machine-to-machine interaction design, and safety analysis of SMART reactor technology.

Intelligence Online said in the same report that the United States is cautious about the Saudi nuclear program.

In November 2022, Westinghouse filed a similar case against KEPCO in US federal court for bidding for a nuclear power contract in Poland.

The agreement usually includes cooperation in the civil nuclear field, the creation of infrastructure facilities for nuclear energy, and the production of radioactive isotopes for the industrial, medical, and agricultural sectors, in addition to providing training for employees and organizing visits by specialists to the state.

Saudi Arabia will be the second country in the Arab Gulf region to benefit from nuclear energy after the UAE.

In April 2019, Bloomberg published satellite images and said that Saudi Arabia was close to completing the construction of the first nuclear reactor.

The Saudi Energy Minister, Abdulaziz bin Salman, confirmed that the contracts for the nuclear power reactors that his country intends to build will be awarded “very soon,” pointing out that the kingdom has a huge program for uranium exploration.

Concerning the activities of the International Mining Conference in Riyadh, which was held on January 11, 2023, the minister revealed that there are discussions with “willing partners” for these contracts, according to what was reported by Bloomberg.

This came in response to the minister’s speech, who said during the conference that Saudi Arabia is seeking to build nuclear reactors to produce electricity, and there is a plan to build two reactors to better understand the technology before expanding it.

 

The Presence of Uranium

The minister pointed out that Saudi Arabia enjoys modern exploration activities, which revealed the presence of uranium in different geographical areas such as Jabal Sayid in Medina.

Saudi Arabia seeks to manufacture and export nuclear fuel for domestic use, as part of its efforts to lead the regional clean energy market, according to the Saudi minister’s speech, noting that his country has launched a nuclear energy program for peaceful uses to reduce carbon emissions.

On March 11, 2022, Saudi Arabia announced the establishment of a nuclear energy holding company to be able to participate in nuclear economic projects locally and internationally.

Riyadh aims, according to what the Saudi ambassador to Austria and permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna Abdullah bin Khalid said, to operate and develop nuclear facilities for the production of energy, desalinated water, and thermal applications and to develop a strategy for developing human capital in the field of atomic energy, and its cooperation with international institutes of atomic energy research.

Experts say that if Saudi Arabia is able to extract enough uranium domestically, rather than relying on foreign suppliers, it could give the kingdom a boost towards creating its own weapons program.

The kingdom aspires to use its reserves of uranium in the production of nuclear energy, as the Saudi Minister of Energy, Abdulaziz bin Salman, confirmed on January 12, 2022, that his country possesses large uranium quantities and that it seeks to exploit it commercially.

According to The Guardian, Saudi Arabia will be able to produce more than 90,000 tons of uranium from three “major deposits” in the middle northwest of the kingdom, according to secret documents prepared by Chinese geologists through a cooperation agreement between Riyadh and Beijing.

The newspaper pointed out that the Chinese experts were striving to help Riyadh identify its uranium reserves very quickly as part of the cooperation agreement in the field of nuclear energy, while this disclosure would increase concerns about the kingdom’s interest in an atomic weapons program.

 

China as an Option

The biggest international concern is the kingdom’s lack of transparency. Under a 2005 agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Riyadh has avoided inspections of the Small Quantities Protocol (SQP).

However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is now trying to convince Saudi Arabia to accept a full monitoring program, but the Saudis have so far rejected this request.

Riyadh faces conditions before introducing nuclear fuel into reactors, as it will have to implement a comprehensive set of rules and procedures, including IAEA inspections, designed to ensure no fissile material is diverted for weapons use, something the kingdom has so far avoided.

If Saudi Arabia is close to completing its first nuclear reactor, it must, before using the technology, sign the international rules governing this industry.

Amidst all this Saudi effort, Riyadh’s cooperation with Beijing in this field represents a red line that should not be crossed in “the kingdom’s tense relationship with the United States,” according to Intelligence Online.

However, Saudi Arabia is exploiting the attempt of the Chinese Nuclear Engineering & Construction Corporation Limited (CNEC) as a pressure tool in the forthcoming Mohammed bin Salman negotiations.

The leading agencies in the nuclear sector in the kingdom, such as King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (K.A.CARE) and the recently announced Saudi Nuclear Energy Holding Company (SNEHC), are studying the compatibility of CNEC’s offer with its technical requirements, given that its cost is 20% lower than that of EDF.

After renewing talks with Paris, Riyadh hopes, according to the magazine, by waving and threatening to work with Chinese companies to lift the restrictions imposed on US exports against KIPCO.

The Chinese President, Xi Jinping, paid an official visit to the Queen from December 7-9, 2022, at the invitation of King Salman bin Abdulaziz, during which he participated in a Saudi–Chinese summit.

In this context, Mark Hibbs, a senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, considers Beijing’s interests diplomatic and commercial.

Hibbs added that Saudi Arabia’s assistance in its nuclear program strengthens relations with a major ally of the United States, and China is always looking for new supplies of crude and buyers for its nuclear plants.

 

American Concern

Therefore, Washington is monitoring Riyadh to ensure its peaceful use of nuclear energy and to act responsibly in this field.

However, the kingdom’s nuclear ambitions have become a growing source of concern in the US Congress and among allies since the period of former US President Donald Trump, who established close relations with Riyadh.

Then US Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry, announced on March 28, 2019, that his administration had given the green light to US companies to work on six nuclear projects in Saudi Arabia, despite lawmakers’ fears that the kingdom might seek to acquire nuclear weapons.

At that time, Perry pledged that Washington would commit to not re-processing the Saudis’ fuel to make a nuclear weapon, and then expressed to the senators his fears that if the United States was not to partner with Saudi Arabia, it would go to Russia and China for civilian nuclear technology.

This came in the midst of a struggle at the time between the administration of former US President Donald Trump and Congress over the sale of nuclear technology to Riyadh.

The conflict began after it became clear that the US Department of Energy had granted seven permits to Riyadh and that sensitive nuclear information had been transferred by US companies to Saudi Arabia.

At the time, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry obstructed congressional committees demanding the purpose of the authorizations and the companies involved.

Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, told Pompeo that if he can’t trust them, they shouldn’t have nuclear weapons.

US companies cannot legally transfer nuclear materials to other countries without agreements dealing with Article 123 of the US Nuclear Energy Act, according to which countries undertake the peaceful use of this technology, but the kingdom did not seek to conclude an agreement on this article.