Chief Executive Luc Oursel said the reactor in Olkiluoto will ultimately cost about 8 billion euros, same as a similar reactor it is building in Flamanville, in northern France. That's well over the last cost estimate of around EUR6.4 billion.
"Our estimation is that the whole project (in Finland) will have a cost in constant euros close to Flamanville," Mr. Oursel said during a press conference.
In a shock announcement, Czech power company CEZ on Friday excluded France’s Areva from its multi-billion-euro tender to expand the Temelin nuclear power plant for failing to fulfill all the requirements, leaving Toshiba’s US unit Westinghouse and a consortium led by Russia’s Atomstroyexport as the two remaining bidders.
It is one thing for a green pressure group to claim nuclear power is too expensive, but quite another when the charge comes from the head of an atomic industry pioneer such as General Electric.
GE built some of the world's first commercial atomic reactors in the 1950s and has remained an industry leader since its nuclear joint venture with Japan's Hitachi in 2007.
The launch of a flagship nuclear power station in Finland has been delayed for a third time, officials say.
Finnish electricity company TVO says the Olkiluoto 3 plant will not be ready by the latest deadline of 2014 and a new timetable has not yet been set.
Government plans for nuclear power risk handing control of the UK's climate and energy policies to France, according to four senior environmentalists.
Energy giant EDF and reactor builder Areva, big players in the UK's plans, are largely French government-owned.
Jonathan Porritt, Tom Burke, Charles Secrett and Tony Juniper say the firms are landing UK citizens with all the financial risks of nuclear new build.
They have told Prime Minister David Cameron he is being badly advised.
A senior director at Areva, France’s state-owned nuclear champion, has confirmed that he did hire a Swiss intelligence firm to examine its disastrous €1.8bn purchase of a uranium miner but denied that it was part of a plot against Anne Lauvergeon, the company’s former chief executive.
Ms Lauvergeon, known as “Atomic Anne” after 10 years at the helm of one of the world’s leading nuclear manufacturers, shocked the French business and political elite this week when she accused her former employers of spying on her and claimed that she had been victim to a long-running “plot” to destabilise her, directed from the “highest levels of the state”.
PARIS—France's nuclear-safety watchdog ordered immediate upgrades to nuclear reactors to guard against natural disasters, which Électricité de France SA said could require €10 billion, or roughly $13 billion, in additional costs.
In a review following last year's Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire concluded that no plants needed to be shut down immediately but that steps should be taken as "soon as possible" to improve safety at France's 58 reactors.
Dec 11 (Reuters) - French nuclear reactor maker Areva will announce large losses on Tuesday when the group unveils its strategy, French Industry Minister Eric Besson said on Sunday.
"I can confirm that Areva will announce losses," Besson told Radio J. "In all likelihood, they will be big."
PARIS Oct 21 (Reuters) - Unions at Areva Areva fear up to 4,000 staff, or 10 percent, will lose their jobs in a strategic review of the French nuclear reactor to be presented by CEO Luc Oursel in mid-December, Le Figaro newspaper said without citing sources.
Earlier this month, Areva said it was reviewing its investments, and may postpone some, after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March impacted decisions on nuclear investments worldwide.
HELSINKI/PARIS, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Finnish utility firm Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) blamed supplier Areva for further delays to the construction of its Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant which may further push back operations to 2014.
The 1,600 megawatt plant Olkiluoto 3, Finland's fifth nuclear reactor, was originally scheduled to start operations in 2009 but delays and soaring costs meant TVO revised its start date to 2013.
