Islamabad seeks nuclear power deal with China

Wednesday, Sep 17, 2008

Islamabad is to seek from Beijing fuel technology for the future nuclear power plants during the forthcoming much trumpeted visit of President Asif Ali Zardari to China, a senior government official at the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) said yesterday.

“Pakistan is going to install two more nuclear power plants at Chashma, which are to be known as Chashma C-3 and C-4. These power plants will cost over Rs139bn, including foreign exchange component of Rs99.538bn,” the official said.

The Central Development Working Party (CDWP) that met here on September 18 for the first time since the new government took over will take up the C-3 and C-4 projects for approval. The two projects would generate 600 MW of electricity. Each plant will comprise the nuclear steam supply system (NSSS), a turbine generator set and associated auxiliary equipment and installations.

The NSSS consists of a reactor and coolant loops connected in parallel to the reactor vessel. Each loop comprises a reactor coolant pump and steam generator.

The C-3 and C-4 will be completed in 8 years and they would provide electricity to the NTDC (National Transmission and Dispatch Company) at the rate of Rs6.06 per unit. The annual power generation of the project will be of 4,467.6mn kilowatt hours.

According to the official, the country has also planned to establish a Nuclear Power Fuel Complex (NPFC) at the cost of Rs51.298bn to locally fabricate fuel that will be used for the future nuclear power plants.

The Nuclear Power Fuel Complex under implementation consists of five components including chemical processing plants, enrichment plant, seamless tube plant-1, fuel fabrication plant and nuclear fuel testing plant.

Source: Gulf Times