On July 14th, 2019, Algerian Energy Minister Mohamed Arqab revealed that the government plans to build the first nuclear power plant to generate electricity. Noting that his country has a reserve of uranium estimated at 26,000 tons.

During his visit to the Center for Nuclear Energy Research in Algiers, Arqab explained that his country is currently working on the development of national competencies to build Algeria’s first nuclear power plant, referring to utilizing it for other uses, “especially in the medical and pharmaceutical fields”.

He said that the production of electricity across the world depends on 6 – 8 percent of nuclear energy, stressing that Algeria, which owns four research centers in the field of nuclear energy, “strives to achieve this goal”.

The Algerian minister said that the stages of the construction of a nuclear power plant needs a long period ranging from 15 to 20 years, pointing out that Algeria is currently using natural gas to produce electricity.

Algeria’s natural gas production is 144 billion cubic meters, of which 45 billion cubic meters are used in electricity generation in the country, which reached until the beginning of 2019 a capacity of 19,000 MW.