Nigeria 'Very Interested' In Cooperation With Rosatom To Diversify Energy Mix - Minister

Nigeria is looking for a partnership with Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom as the country seeks to build its own nuclear industry to diversify its energy mix, the African nation's minister of science and technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, told Sputnik Thursday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th April, 2019) Nigeria is looking for a partnership with Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom as the country seeks to build its own nuclear industry to diversify its energy mix, the African nation's minister of science and technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, told Sputnik Thursday.

"We are interested in working with Rosatom, very interested ... It is very important that we diversify our energy and our resources. The nuclear industry is one that is very important to us because nuclear energy is very important in so many sectors of the economy - in medicine, in agriculture, in manufacturing, in education. So we want to build up the nuclear industry in Nigeria and we also want to produce electricity using nuclear power," Dr. Onu said.

He added that the country used "a lot of hydrocarbons and also hydropower" and was currently exploring solar and wind energy, reiterating that "the nuclear mix is also very important.

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The minister expressed hope that partnership with Rosatom would open wider cooperation with Russia "as a nation."

"We have a very good relationship with Russia and we want to even strengthen that relationship further," he added.

In October 2017, Rosatom announced that Russia and Nigeria had signed an agreement on construction and operation of a nuclear power plant as well as a multipurpose nuclear research center in Nigeria. In June 2018, Nigerian Ambassador in Moscow Steve Davies Ugbah said that the sides had chosen two sites where two nuclear power plants for Nigeria would be built as part of the agreement.