Algeria plans to build its first nuclear plant in 2025 to cope with the country's soaring electricity consumption, the official APS news agency reported Sunday, citing Minister of Energy and Mines, Yousef Yousfi.

"We plan to set up our first nuclear power plant in 2025, and we are working on it," Yousfi was quoted as saying in a press conference in capital Algiers.

Algeria's 29,000-ton uranium reserves are enough to launch two nuclear power plants with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts each for a period of 60 years, the minister said.

"The Nuclear Engineering Institute, recently established, will be in charge of providing specific training for engineers and technicians ahead of tasking them with the mission of running the plant," he added.

In November 2008, the North African nation announced that it is working on building its first nuclear power plant in 2020, and would install one new plant every five years.

The launch of nuclear power is part of a renewable energy program of the government in a bid to diversify the country's energy sources and meet the soaring demand on electricity.