Sarkozy Warns EDF, Areva to Stop Infighting and Work Together
President of France Nicolas Sarkozy
Michele Tantussi/Bloomberg
Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president.
Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president. Photographer: Michele Tantussi/Bloomberg
President Nicolas Sarkozy warned France’s two nuclear champions Areva SA and Electricite de France SA to stop fighting and cooperate.
“We’ve taken decisions to force Areva and EDF to end their conflict,” Sarkozy said today during a visit to a Vallourec SA factory in Montbard, eastern France. “They are going to work together. I am not going to get into the details, but let me be perfectly clear, I am really keeping an eye on this with a microscope.”
Areva and EDF, both state-controlled, have a history of disagreements on some contracts to supply nuclear reactor parts and fuel as well as services for treating and storing fuel. They are in competition to complete development of the first so- called third-generation EPR reactor in Europe, Areva in Finland and EDF in Flamanville, Normandy. Both projects are delayed and over budgets.
“A fight between Areva and EDF would be unacceptable,” Sarkozy told workers. He reiterated a call for the French nuclear industry to widen the number of models on offer for export as well as work to develop a fourth generation reactor.
“We must work on an intermediate model because a country with a population of five or 10 million doesn’t necessarily need an EPR,” Sarkozy said.
‘Significant Portion’
The French government has been urging Areva and EDF to improve relations to win contracts to build nuclear reactors abroad. The state published a report on France’s nuclear industry naming EDF, operator of the country’s 58 nuclear reactors, as leader of an industry that should “conquer a significant portion” of the global market for new reactors.
The EPR’s “complexity” is “a handicap” for its development and cost and may explain the difficulties that companies are facing in developing models in Finland and France, the report said.
Areva and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. have developed a smaller version of the EPR called the Atmea.
GDF Suez SA, a rival to EDF, is seeking to develop an Atmea reactor in France as well as in Jordan. “We are conducting studies because this is a whole new technology, but we are looking into it with great interest,” Chief Executive Officer Gerard Mestrallet said yesterday in Sao Paulo.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tara Patel in Paris at tpatel2@bloomberg.net
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