Doha (Platts)--19Nov2008

The United Arab Emirates has told the US Department of State it will not
sign a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement until after President-elect
Barack Obama takes office in January and after it is confident Congress will
approve the accord, UAE and US diplomatic sources said.

The agreement would permit the UAE to build nuclear power reactors with
the assistance of US vendors Westinghouse or General Electric.

Sources said the agreement was tentatively approved by both nations
earlier this month, but will not be signed until the UAE sounds out US
legislators, who must approve the agreement. While there is no apparent
opposition in the Congress to the agreement, the UAE wants to make sure there
are no unanswered questions about how the accord would be implemented, sources
said.

The UAE is setting up a nuclear power program administration in the
capital, Abu Dhabi. Early in 2009, sources there said, the UAE government may
decide whether to deploy nuclear power reactors to diversify its electricity
generation fuels mix from natural gas and oil.

--Mark Hibbs, mark_hibbs@platts.com