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South Korea here to talk uranium
By: JO-MAR DUDDY

A HIGH-POWERED state and private sector delegation of South Korea will arrive in Namibia on Saturday for a short visit to talk uranium and nuclear power business.
Leading the delegation will be presidential envoy Lee Sang-deuk, a member of the South Korean Parliament and the elder brother of the countrys president, Lee Myung-Bak.
Also included will be Know-ledge Economy Minister Choi Kyung Hwan, the South Korean Consulate in Pretoria confirmed yesterday. Companies represented will include the Korea National Oil Corp, Korea Resources Corp, SK Energy Co and Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co.
The trip is part of a tour of only three African countries the other two being Uganda and South Africa.
Citing the South Korean government, Dow Jones Newswires said the tour aims to promote its nuclear power plant industry and uranium development.
The agency recently also reported that SK Energy Co is part of a South Korean consortium, Kepco, trying to get its hands on 15 per cent in Extract Resources Rssing South, which promises to become one of the three biggest uranium mines in the world within the next five years.
South Korea wants to build up strategic stockpiles of uranium to fuel its growing nuclear ambitions. The country wants its uranium self-sufficiency ratio to rise to 25 per cent by 2016 and to 50 per cent by 2030 from 6,7 per cent in 2010 through the acquisition of overseas mines.
The Ministry of Knowledge Economy said in mid-January it is targeting overseas contracts for ten nuclear power plants by 2012 and 80 plants by 2030.
This would make it the worlds third-largest exporter of nuclear power plants and account for 20 per cent of new nuclear power construction projects globally by 2030, according to Dow Jones Newswires.
Namibia formed part of an African delegation of eight countries which attended an investment seminar in Seoul at the end of last year. Local government officials and businesspeople participated in the seminar, organised by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca).
Infrastructure and energy projects were the focus points, the South Korean governments official website said. Korean investors were informed about the construction of power plants in several African countries, the website said.
The event also featured a panel discussion in which Korean researchers and a Namibian delegate offered keen insights into investment prospects and strategies for cooperation, it said.
Confirmation of the South Korean visit follows shortly after Mines and Energy Minister Erkki Nghimtina re-affirmed Namibias plans to go nuclear.
Government has decided to built a nuclear power plant within the next 15 to 20 years, Nghimtina told Engineering News Online on the sideline of the International Conference on Access to Civil Nuclear Energy in Paris last Tuesday.
Although no firm date has yet been set for the commissioning of the nuclear power station, it is likely to happen in the second half of the next decade perhaps 2025 or 2027.
Although an earlier date is not impossible, the website quoted the Minister.
Were saying it will be built in the future. It will be a long process. But we have to start preparing now. Our policy is, that by 2030, Namibia will be an industrial country, and to be an industrial country you need energy, Nghimtina was quoted.
The Minister has already signed an agreement on cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy with India last year, allowing for India to train personnel and set up nuclear power plants in Namibia and for Namibia to uranium oxide to India.
Uranium also featured high on the agenda with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and entourage of 300, including Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko and Sergei Kiriyenko, chief of Russias nuclear energy authority Rosatom, visited Namibia last June.
In October last year, Nghimtina visited another major nuclear power player, Finland, where he visited the Teollisuuden Voima Oyjs Olkiluoto nuclear power plant. Finland has four nuclear reactors and two power plants, with a fifth to be completed in 2012.
Finland and Namibia will enhance their cooperation in the mining and energy sector, the Finish Government said at the time, adding that the development of the mining sector in Namibia requires major energy investments. During his time, Nghimtina got acquainted with Finnish technology within the fields of energy efficiency, renewable sources of energy and mining technology and [met] executives of Finnish companies representing these sectors, Finland said.
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