Rosatom official have held talks with Yacouba Zabré Gouba, Minister of Energy, Mines & Careers of Burkina Faso, and his technical team in Ouagadougou on the possible construction of a nuclear power plant. “The creation of a nuclear power plant is of paramount importance to us, since energy is a fundamental element that contributes to the energy sovereignty of our country,” a Ministry statement said.
Igor Martynov, Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary of Russia to Burkina Faso, also attended discussions. “For the successful launch of the project, two key steps must be taken: to sign an agreement and to submit a technical proposal from the Russian Federation to the technical group of the Ministry of Energy of Burkina Faso,” he noted.
According to Gouba, the purpose of the visit was to implement the roadmap signed between the two parties in March 2024 for the construction of a nuclear power plant in Burkina. “We will be discussing much more technical aspects so that we can get rid of everything that needs to be done beforehand so that we can get on with the actual construction of this power plant,” he commented.
Talks focused on the implementation and impact of the project and involved the ministries of environment, higher education, health and agriculture. Gouba believes that a nuclear power plant “will be able to definitively and permanently resolve Burkina Faso’s energy deficit”. He added: “Both parties will do their utmost to deliver the infrastructure within a reasonable timeframe.”
In October 2023, the Burkina government and Rosatom signed a memorandum of understanding for the construction of a NPP in Burkina Faso to double the country’s electricity production by 2030.
