Areva

S&P to decide in 30 days whether to downgrade Areva to junk

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

PARIS, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's has put French nuclear power engineering group Areva on "credit-watch negative" and will decide within 30 days whether to downgrade its credit ratings by one notch into non-investment grade territory.

A downgrade into the junk category would make its shares and bonds unattractive for investment funds who only seek investment-grade securities, but Areva's finance chief said the firm was not worried about its liquidity or borrowing costs.

Posted in | »

Olkiluoto 3 to be ready in 2018

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) and Areva bickered at one another on Monday over an updated schedule for the completion of construction and start-up of a third unit at the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in Eurajoki, Satakunta.

Areva on Monday revealed that it expects to complete construction on the site in 2016 but reminded that commissioning the new unit will require an additional two years. As a result, the third unit is not expected to generate electricity to the national grid until the end of 2018.

Posted in | »

Areva's stock plunges on sales warning

Sunday, August 3, 2014

PARIS, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Shares in French nuclear power group Areva closed 20 percent lower on Friday, the worst fall since the company was formed in 2001, as it posted a first-half loss, exited a thermal solar power business and cut sales targets.

The shares were down by as much as 23 percent earlier in the session with trading the busiest by volume since late February, when Areva posted a net loss of nearly half a billion euros.

Chief Executive Luc Oursel dropped a long-held target to sell 10 nuclear reactors by 2016, saying it would "take a few more years" and the firm warned that 2014 revenue would fall 10 percent, more than the 2-5 percent decline forecast in February.

Posted in | »

UK nuclear clean-up bill rises by £6.6bn

Monday, June 23, 2014

The bill faced by taxpayers for the clean-up of Sellafield and Britain’s other nuclear sites will be £6.6bn more than previously thought, in a sign of the challenges the country faces in dealing with its atomic legacy.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said it had raised its best estimate for the undiscounted cost of the clean-up over the next 120 years to £110bn, a 7 per cent increase, with Sellafield alone accounting for £79.1bn of that. It also raised its total discounted estimate of the costs by 10 per cent to £64.9bn.

Posted in | »

Finnish nuclear plant delayed again as Areva, TVO bicker

Monday, March 3, 2014

HELSINKI/PARIS, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Finland's TVO was unable on Friday to estimate a start date for its long-delayed Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor as the utility and French supplier Areva, already battling in court, blamed each other for the latest delays.

Finnish daily Kauppalehti cited sources from the site saying the startup of the reactor could be delayed until at least 2018 as work had slowed.

Early last year, Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) said the start might be delayed until 2016. Construction of the Areva-designed EPR reactor began in 2005 and was originally scheduled for completion in 2009.

Posted in | »

Areva may use French fund to help pay for UK nuclear plant - paper

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

PARIS (Reuters) - Areva is in talks with the French government to release some funds set aside for dismantling its nuclear installations in France to help the company finance a new British nuclear reactor, a newspaper reported.

Britain signed a deal with France's state-owned utility EDF in October to build a 16-billion pound nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point in southwest Britain, the first new plant in Europe since the Fukushima disaster.

Posted in | »

EU to examine aid for UK nuclear deal

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

AFP - The European Commission said Tuesday it would examine British government support for a massive 19-billion-euro nuclear plant to be built by French and Chinese firms.

London announced Monday plans for two reactors to be built by French energy giant EDF, backed by the world's leading nuclear power company, Areva of France, and Chinese nuclear firms CGN and CNNC.

Posted in | »

Britain to build Europe's first nuclear plant since Fukushima

Sunday, October 20, 2013

LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) - Britain is set to sign a deal with France's EDF for the first nuclear plant to start construction in Europe since Japan's Fukushima disaster raised safety concerns worldwide, at a cost estimated at around $23 billion.

Under the deal, expected to be announced on Monday, the French utility will lead a consortium, including a Chinese group, to construct two European Pressurised Water Reactors (EPRs) designed by France's Areva.

Posted in | »

EDF Nuclear Deal With U.K. Would Be Reviewed by EU, Almunia Says

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Electricite de France SA’s deal with the U.K. to build the nation’s first new nuclear plant in two decades will be probed by the European Union once an agreement is struck and regulators are informed, the EU’s antitrust chief said.

“The U.K. government has announced to us that they will notify in the coming months a program linked with investments in nuclear energy, in new plants,” Joaquin Almunia, the EU’s competition commissioner, said in the margins of a conference in Florence, Italy. “Once this notification will take place we will need to assess if this scheme, this program complies or not” with the EU’s rules.

Posted in | »

Davey woos China over nuclear plants

Sunday, September 8, 2013

ED DAVEY, the energy secretary, will travel to Beijing this month to lay the groundwork for a sweeping new partnership that could lead to Chinese-designed nuclear reactors being built in Britain.

The trip is the latest sign of the government's desperation to find backers for its troubled £200bn low-carbon overhaul of the energy industry. Last week Michael Fallon, Davey's No2, signed a memorandum of understanding to co-operate on civil power with Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear monopoly.

Posted in | »