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Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., South Africa’s indebted state power utility, is gauging interest from companies that may want to participate in developing and building small modular reactors using so-called pebble-bed technology and supplying the fuel they would need.

It will hold a meeting on the program on Feb. 12 and submissions must be made by the end of next month, it said in a tender announcement Thursday.

The announcement appears to revive a project mooted by Eskom in 1999, when it forecast it could develop the technology and earn billions of rand a year by licensing it to other utilities. In 2004 it held discussions with Areva SA and later Westinghouse Electric Co. took a stake in the Eskom unit tasked with developing it.

(Adds history of project in third paragraph)

To contact the reporter on this story: Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg at asguazzin@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: John McCorry at jmccorry@bloomberg.net, Rene Vollgraaff

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