Egypt Seeks Two Extra El-Dabaa Reactors Before First Power

Egypt will ask Russia’s Rosatom to study two extra reactors at the El-Dabaa nuclear plant, Electricity Minister Mahmoud Esmat said, after orders from President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi.

The original four VVER-1200 units are still being built on the Mediterranean coast. None has sent power to a grid that peaked at 40,200 megawatts in August 2026.

Sisi Ordered Talks for Two Extra Reactors

Esmat set out the plan in a 13 August 2026 phone interview on Ahmed Mousa’s programme Ala Mas’ouliyaty (On My Responsibility). He said Egypt and Rosatom would discuss adding two reactors to the plant in Matrouh, and that the instruction had come from El-Sisi.

He said the site can take more units. He gave no date for the talks and did not say a final investment decision had been taken. Each of the four contracted reactors is rated at 1,200 megawatts, for a combined 4,800 megawatts. Esmat said those four are due to be finished by fiscal year 2029/2030.

Two more of the same rating would take the plant to 7,200 megawatts. That arithmetic is simple. The politics and the money are not, because the first kilowatt-hour of nuclear power is still two years away and the second-stage loan does not yet exist.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The order: Esmat said El-Sisi instructed the government to pursue two extra reactors at El-Dabaa.
• The counterpart: The talks he described are with Rosatom, which is already building the four contracted units.
• The site: Esmat said the Mediterranean plot can hold additional reactors.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• A decision: No construction permit, notice to proceed, or signed second-stage contract has been announced.
• A timetable: Esmat did not say when Cairo and Moscow would meet or when units five and six might pour first concrete.
• The money: Officials have not said whether a new Russian export loan, a different split, or Egyptian budget funds would pay for the extra pair.

Later in August, the conversation moved from a television studio to Nizhny Novgorod. That is where the financial model for a fifth and sixth unit was named in public by Rosatom’s director general.

The Grid Already Hit 40,200 Megawatts on Gas

The same week Esmat spoke, the unified grid recorded a peak load of 40,200 megawatts, 200 megawatts above the previous day, as a heatwave lifted air-conditioning demand. Four El-Dabaa units at nameplate would equal 11.9 percent of that peak. Six units would equal 17.9 percent. Neither figure is power in hand. Both are still steel, concrete and a schedule.

World Nuclear Association figures for 2023 show why the ministry is looking past gas even while it still burns it. Egypt generated 215 TWh that year. Natural gas supplied 75.8 percent of that output and oil another 11.4 percent, with hydro at 7.2 percent, wind at 3.1 percent and solar at 2.5 percent. Domestic gas production was about 59.3 billion cubic metres, down 11.5 percent from the year before, and below consumption.

THE 2023 MIX AND THE 2026 PEAK

• August peak: The grid hit 40,200 megawatts during the 2026 heatwave.
• Gas share: Natural gas supplied 75.8 percent of 2023 generation.
• Oil share: Oil supplied 11.4 percent of 2023 generation.
• Four-unit slice: 4,800 megawatts is 11.9 percent of that August peak.

Esmat said fossil fuels would remain a permanent part of the power system. He also said El-Dabaa would cut the draw on traditional fuels and save about 8 million cubic metres of gas for the national grid. In the same interview he described a parallel build-out of about 5 gigawatts of solar, about 4 gigawatts of wind and 8 gigawatts of battery storage, aimed at raising renewables to 45 percent of generation by 2028.

Petroleum Minister Karim Badawi said the petroleum and electricity ministries had kept gas flowing to power plants through the same summer peak. The nuclear expansion Esmat sketched would not change that summer. It would, if built, change how much gas the grid needs in the 2030s, which is the point of adding two units before the first four have run.

Four Units Are Still Years From the First Kilowatt

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s country profile lists four reactors being constructed at El-Dabaa, each a 1,200 megawatt VVER-1200. Global Energy Monitor’s tracker gives the construction start dates for all four units, and those dates are now all in the past. The work is concurrent. The power is not.

THE BUILD ON THE COAST

1. July 20, 2022: Construction starts on Unit 1.
2. November 19, 2022: Construction starts on Unit 2.
3. May 3, 2023: Construction starts on Unit 3.
4. January 23, 2024: Construction starts on Unit 4.
5. November 2025: The Unit 1 reactor pressure vessel is installed.
6. July 9, 2026: The Unit 2 reactor pressure vessel is installed.
7. September 26, 2026: The Nuclear Power Plants Authority installs the lower plate in the Unit 3 reactor pit.

Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev said more than 25,000 people were on site each day around the Unit 2 vessel lift, including over 18,000 Egyptian citizens, and that the workforce should rise toward 30,000. He said the next job on that unit was welding the main cooling pipelines. He also said the site was being prepared for first nuclear fuel in the first half of 2027 and for connection to the grid in 2028.

Unit 3 Reached the Lower Plate in September

On 26 September 2026, the Nuclear Power Plants Authority said it had installed the lower plate of the Unit 3 reactor pit, after dry shielding went in on 28 August 2026. The authority said the step prepares the shaft for that unit’s reactor pressure vessel, under watch by inspectors from the Egyptian Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority who are stationed at the site.

First Fuel Is Due in 2027

The same day, Esmat met Andrey Petrov, Rosatom’s first deputy director general and head of Atomstroyexport, with Nuclear Power Plants Authority Chairman Sherif Helmy present. They reviewed work against the approved schedule, preparations to receive fuel in 2027, grid connection plans, turbine manufacturing, and wider training in Egypt and abroad for the crews who will run the station.

That meeting was about finishing the four units already bought. It was not an announcement that units five and six had been ordered.

How a $25 Billion Russian Loan Locks the Fuel Cycle

The four-unit plant sits on a package of contracts that entered into force on 11 December 2017, after a November 2015 intergovernmental agreement. Russia is covering 85 percent of an estimated $30 billion cost through a state export loan. Egypt is covering the remaining 15 percent over decades.

A 2016 presidential decree set that loan at $25 billion, at 3 percent a year, with repayment over 22 years and the first instalment due on 15 October 2029. Those terms apply to the four units now rising. They do not, on the public record, apply to two more.

Rosatom’s project brief says the Russian side will supply nuclear fuel for the entire lifecycle of the plant, train staff, and help Egyptian operators through the first ten years of running and maintenance. A separate contract covers purpose-built storage and containers for used fuel. The Nuclear Power Plants Authority received a construction permit in January 2025 for a dry store on site that can hold used fuel for up to 100 years. Used fuel is due, under the Russian contracts, to go back to Russia for processing.

WHAT THE 2017 PACKAGE ALREADY BUYS

• Four reactors: Atomstroyexport is building four Generation III+ VVER-1200 units for the Nuclear Power Plants Authority.
• Lifetime fuel: Russia is contracted to supply fuel for as long as the plant runs.
• Used fuel: Russia is to build storage and supply containers, with used fuel later returned for processing.
• People: Training plus technical help for the first ten years of operation sit inside the same deal.
• Local work: Local content on the first unit was set at about 20 percent, with a higher share expected on later units.

That is already a hold that outlives any one minister. Adding two reactors on the same model would extend the same fuel, waste and service chain across more megawatts, which is why a second-stage financial model matters more than a new artist’s impression of the skyline.

The Mediterranean Site Was Mapped for Eight Reactors

El-Dabaa sits on about 12,000 feddans in Matrouh, about 300 kilometres northwest of Cairo. The World Nuclear Association, in its Egypt profile updated 4 September 2026, notes the coastal site was first chosen in 1983 and is deemed suitable for eight reactors.

Germany’s KWU, Framatome and Westinghouse tendered in that first round, and Australia and Niger had agreed to supply uranium. The plan stopped after the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Studies for power and desalination came back in 1999 to 2003. By early 2010 the proposal had grown to four units. Politics then froze it again.

In February 2015, Rosatom and the electricity ministry launched talks on two 1,200 megawatt units, with the prospect of two more. Rosatom bid four units that June. The November 2015 intergovernmental agreement locked in those four. The government also said then that a second set of four units would go to international tender. China National Nuclear Corporation had signed a cooperation paper that May, and Korean firms were reported to be shaping a bid in the 4,000 to 6,000 megawatt range.

The two extra reactors Esmat described would pull part of that unused envelope back to the vendor already on site, without a public tender having been called. Helmy has said Egypt is also looking at further nuclear capacity and at new sites. The Nuclear Power Plants Authority worked with WorleyParsons on a study in the El Nagila area, 80 kilometres east of Port Said, for a possible second plant.

The association says the four El-Dabaa units, once running, should supply about 10 percent of Egypt’s electricity. A separate 2030 aim of 9 percent nuclear rests on the first two units reaching commercial operation. Two extra reactors would raise those shares only after they were built, licensed and connected, which is a 2030s story even in an optimistic reading.

Likhachev Wants a Financial Model for Units Five and Six

In Nizhny Novgorod in late August 2026, Likhachev sat down with Esmat. They reviewed construction on the four units and, separately, the money for two more VVER-1200s. The reported range for the first plant’s cost was about $28.75 billion to $30 billion, with the $25 billion loan still the Russian share. Talks on units five and six were described as seeking a similar or adjusted framework under current conditions.

Today we are starting a conversation about the second stage, the possible expansion of the station by two more units, and the financial and economic model for the fifth or sixth unit. If we come to a common point of view, a common understanding, we will report to the leadership of our countries.

Alexey Likhachev, Director General, Rosatom, in Nizhny Novgorod

He said he saw no problem with electrical equipment, control systems or turbine-hall kit, and that European and Asian suppliers were delivering on rhythm. That sentence was about the four units. The sentence about reporting to the two leaderships was about the extra pair.

The same talks also put other nuclear work on the table: small modular reactors, floating plants, desalination using the nuclear site, cancer-therapy and radiopharmaceutical centres, and industrial 3D printing. Those items are even further from a signed plant than units five and six. Cost is the open question on all of them, including whether Egypt needs more nuclear at El-Dabaa before Unit 1 has run, and who would pay if it does.

In November 2025, Rosatom and the electricity ministry signed a wider cooperation programme covering economic work, specialist agencies, and scientific and technical exchange. That paper created a channel. It did not order two more large reactors.

What Two Extra Reactors Would Add to the Mix

Until a contract exists, the extra pair is a capacity case on paper. The four-unit plant is a construction site with a fuel date. Putting the two configurations side by side shows what Cairo is asking Moscow to price, and what it is not yet buying.

FOUR UNITS NOW, SIX UNITS ON THE TABLE

The IAEA’s 2019 integrated nuclear infrastructure review, carried out at Egypt’s request, found extensive work already done for construction, plus four recommendations and three suggestions before commissioning. A 2026 technical cooperation project is meant to strengthen the regulator and the owner for licensing, oversight and operational readiness on the plant that is actually being built. An expansion would land on that same regulator, and on a fuel-and-waste chain written for four units.

Esmat’s television remarks and Likhachev’s Nizhny Novgorod remarks still describe a conversation. If the two sides reach a common view, Likhachev said, they will take it to the leadership of both countries. No date has been set for that report.