The Saudis want the US to help build a ‘nuclear Aramco’
Riyadh has proposed to visiting American leaders developing a joint U.S.-Saudi project to build the country’s civilian nuclear energy program, four people briefed on the plans told Semafor.
The project — referred to as “nuclear Aramco” — is designed to bolster Saudi Arabia’s ambitions to produce, and potentially export, atomic energy, while also addressing U.S. and international concerns about the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology.
The Biden administration has been holding discussions with Riyadh in recent months about defense and economic cooperation, as well as potentially normalizing diplomatic relations between the Saudis and Israel — a longstanding goal of U.S. foreign policy. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said he would consider forging diplomatic ties with Israel if, in return, the U.S. offers to help Saudi Arabia develop a civilian nuclear energy industry, provides stepped-up security commitments, and greenlights new arms sales to Riyadh’s military, according to those briefed on discussions.
The Saudis have specifically cited their state oil company, Aramco, as a model for how civil nuclear cooperation with the U.S. could progress. The company started in the 1930s as a partnership with John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil and was initially called the Arabian American Oil Co. Today it’s wholly Saudi-controlled and is among the world’s most profitable companies.
Under this nuclear partnership, the Saudis have told interlocutors, an Arabian American Nuclear Power Co. could be formed that would give U.S. companies and entities a direct role in the development and oversight of nuclear power development in Saudi Arabia. But the enrichment of uranium would still occur inside its borders.
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