Russia's Rosatom still keen to build South Africa's nuclear plants

Russia's Rosatom said on Wednesday it was still committed to taking part in a transparent and competitive bidding process to build nuclear power plants in South Africa after a court blocked the plans last week.

South Africa's energy minister said on Tuesday the government may appeal the judgment which declared a cooperation pact with Russia's state-owned nuclear company Rosatom unlawful.

The pact drew criticism from environmental groups, which accused the government of seeking to strike secret deals with Russia without an open bidding process.

South Africa and Russia signed an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) in 2014 for cooperation between Rosatom and South African utility Eskom, which aims to build 9,600 megawatts (MW) of nuclear capacity to wean the African nation off coal.

"We are confident in our world class technology, unmatched safety standards and highly competitive solutions," a senior Rosatom official said in a statement.

Eskom declined to comment on the process and said it would follow the Department of Energy's lead on the matter after the court ended South Africa's request for information (RFI) from vendors, the first step in the tender process.

Eskom's chief nuclear officer David Nicholls said earlier on Twitter: "I want to confirm that Eskom has terminated the nuclear RFI."

Besides Rosatom, manufacturers from South Korea, France, the United States and China are waiting for the tender from South Africa to build up to 10 reactors in what would be one of the world's biggest nuclear projects since the 2011 Fukushima disaster led many countries to cut back nuclear programmes.