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France sets up new nuclear company as part of restructuring process

30th March 2017

By: Keith Campbell

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

     

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The latest step in the restructuring of the French nuclear industry was announced on Thursday evening. Areva TA (responsible for propulsion and research reactors) has been separated from its parent company, Areva SA (Société Anonyme) and set up as an independent company in its own right. The new company is named TechnecAtome.

"The focus of TechnecAtome remains the same as for its predecessor: to be the French company responsible for small and medium nuclear reactors, for propulsion or research," TechnecAtome business development director Bruno Vidal told Engineering News Online. "On the civil side, that means research reactors."

Areva SA sold the operation to a new consortium of shareholders. These comprise the French State, with 50.32% of the equity, and three State-owned entities – the French Atomic Energy Commission (known as the CEA for short) with 20.32%, the naval shipbuilder DCNS, also with 20.32% and national electricity utility EDF, with 9.03%. (Quite separately, EDF is taking over Areva's civil nuclear power plant business.)

DCNS could be involved because it builds the French Navy's nuclear submarines. TechnecAtome is responsible for the reactors that power these submarines.

The new company has a staff complement of about 1 500 and has annual revenues of between €300-million and €350-million. Its head office is just outside Paris but its main facilities are at Cadarache and Aix-le-Provence, in the south of the country.

Meanwhile, the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) is planning a programme to replace its current research reactor, SAFARI-1. This is now more than 50 years old.

"We are absolutely interested in South Africa's new research reactor project," he affirmed. "A research reactor is a tool that can do many things. A research reactor can produce radioisotopes for medicine and for industry; it can be used for applied research and for pure research. We will offer a design optimised for Necsa's requirements, when Necsa issues those requirements."

TechnecAtome uses standardized and certified elements in the research reactors which it offers on the markets. But these are selected and put together in different ways, depending on the specified needs of the client. "We believe that research reactors are role- and country-specific."

"We are responding to the South African request for information within the global French offer for the entire South African programme," explained Vidal. (The major part of the South African project is the acquisition of new nuclear power plants for national power utility Eskom.) "Our work package will be the research reactor."

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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