ABU DHABI: Saudi Arabia wants to have uranium production and enrichment in future for its planned nuclear power program that will begin with two atomic reactors, the kingdom’s new energy minister said on Monday.“We are proceeding with it cautiously … we are experimenting with two nuclear reactors,” Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said at a conference in Abu Dhabi.Saudi Arabia has said it wants to tap nuclear technology for peaceful uses. But enrichment of uranium is a sensitive step in the nuclear fuel cycle because it can open up the possibility of military uses of the material, the issue at the heart of Western and regional concerns over Iran’s atomic work.
Prince Abdulaziz also told reporters the world’s top oil exporter would keep working with other producers to achieve market balance and that an OPEC-led supply-curbing deal would survive “with the will of everybody.”
He said there would be “no radical” change in the oil policy of Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s de facto leader, which he said was based on strategic considerations such as reserves and energy consumption.
The prince had helped negotiate the deal between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, a group known as OPEC+, to cut global crude supply in order to support prices and balance the market.
He told reporters that the OPEC+ alliance was “staying for the long term” and called on OPEC members to comply with output targets.
“We have always worked in a cohesive, coherent way within OPEC to make sure that producers work and prosper together,” the prince said.
“It would be wrong from my end to pre-empt the rest of the OPEC members,” he said when asked whether there was a need for further oil production cuts to support the market.
