Saudi Arabia has signed an agreement with Russia for cooperation in the field of peaceful use of nuclear energy.

The agreement was signed by Hashim Yamani, president of King Abdullah City for Atomic & Renewable Energy (KA-Care), and Sergei Kiriyenko, president of Russia’s Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom).

The agreement is the latest signed by Rosatom in the region. On 24 March, it signed an agreement with Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC). The agreement paves the way for the construction of two nuclear power reactors with a total capacity of 2,000MW at a cost of $10bn.

Saudi Arabia has also been signing agreements. In April 2015, KA-Care signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for joint cooperation with France on peaceful uses of nuclear energy and training and development of nuclear cadres. In March, KA-Care signed an MoU with South Korea on the peaceful development of nuclear power.

KA-Care is being lined up to become the regulator for the kingdom’s nuclear energy plans, following the failure of the country’s planned renewables programme.

It is understood the organisation is being reformed to become the regulator for the country’s planned nuclear energy programme. State utility Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) and state oil major Saudi Aramco are among the companies in consultation with the government regarding a nuclear power programme in the kingdom.

In September 2012, KA-Care appointed a group of advisers to work on plans to develop the 17.9GW nuclear programme. The group included US management consultancy Oliver Wyman, France’s BNP Paribas and the local Riyad Bank. There has been little further information released about the programme since then, but with Riyadh shifting its focus away from renewables, the nuclear programme is expected to gain some momentum moving forward.

SEC and Saudi Aramco are both expected to push forward with renewable energy projects in the coming months. However, these will be on a much smaller scale than what had been planned under the original 54GW programme.