Egypt: Insurers seek to cover nuclear plants overseas
Source: Middle East Insurance Review | Oct 2017
Insurers in Egypt have formed a fund totalling US$20 million and are seeking to provide cover for nuclear plants outside the country.
The Egyptian group of insurers is now waiting for responses from the EU and the US to participate in insurance coverage of operational nuclear plants in those markets, until Egypt completes the construction of its own nuclear power facility, according to local media reports.
In early September, Egypt finalised a deal to build a nuclear power plant with funding from Russia after nearly two years of negotiations. The nuclear plant will be built in Dabaa, about 13km northwest of Cairo on the Mediterranean coast. The plant will have a capacity of 4,800MW.
The same insurance plan was proposed in the 1980s when insurers in Egypt contributed to insurance cover on nuclear plants in England, Germany and France. The fund was stopped after it was confirmed that the construction of a nuclear plant in Egypt would be shelved. Egypt has been considering a nuclear plant at Dabaa on and off since the 1980s.
Mr Abdel Raouf Kotb, the immediate past Chairman of the Insurance Federation of Egypt (IFE) said that all the insurers in the country established a fund in 2016 for the insurance of nuclear plants, under a framework overseen by the Federation.
IFE’s current Chairman Alaa El-Zoheiry, who was elected to the post in August, praised the cooperation among the insurers. However, he pointed out that so far no response has been received by the Egyptian group regarding its proposed participation in nuclear plant insurance coverage abroad. M