Rosatom and Uganda’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources signed a cooperation roadmap on the peaceful use of nuclear energy on the sidelines of the third Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow. The document was signed by Rosatom’s Deputy General Director for International Activities Nikolai Spassky and Uganda’s Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Energy & Mineral Resources, Irene Bateebe.
The core content of this roadmap is to establish a working group to assess Uganda’s national nuclear infrastructure and prepare for subsequent engineering survey contracts for the site selection of the planned Nakasongola NPP.
The cooperation targets the Nakasongola site, which is independent of another NPP project in Buyende that is being evaluated by South Korea. According to Ugandan officials, the Nakasongola project plans to build six reactor units using Russian technology, with a total installed capacity of approximately 7,200 MWe (1,200 MWe per unit).
The roadmap is a preparatory step. Feasibility studies are expected to be completed by 2030, with the first unit potentially being connected to the grid and commissioned between 2035 and 2038. This cooperation builds upon a 2017 Memorandum of Understanding and the 2019 Intergovernmental Agreement signed by both parties.
“Signing the roadmap is an important practical step in the developing our cooperation with Uganda in the field of peaceful uses nuclear energy,” said Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev. “Together with our Ugandan partners, we intend to assess the national nuclear infrastructure and determine further steps for the transition to discussion of a contract for engineering surveys to select the site of the Nakasongola NPP. It is important for us that this work is accompanied by preparation of a national workforce and building the competencies Uganda needs for development of its own nuclear programme. Such a coherent approach would make it possible to create the basis for long-term cooperation.”
