BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - France's Areva has confirmed that it will supply two
1,600-megawatt European Pressurized Water Reactors (EPRs) to China Guangdong
Nuclear Power Corp (CGNPC) in an eight bln eur deal.
Areva's EPRs will be used in the Taishan project in southern China's
Guangdong province, scheduled to be completed in 2013-14, said Areva chief
executive, Anne Lauvergeon.
Areva will deliver uranium and other essential products and services for the
two reactors until 2026, according to the French company.
It has also agreed to transfer key EPR technologies to the China Guangdong
Nuclear Power Corporation (CGNPC), Lauvergeon told a press briefing.
CGNPC has also signed an agreement to buy 35 pct of the production of
UraMin, a Canadian uranium producer that Areva acquired in July.
Areva has also signed an agreement with the China National Nuclear Corp to
undertake feasibility studies on the construction of a spent fuel
reprocessing-recycling plant in China.
The two companies have created a zirconium joint venture.
Lauvergeon said that it had not yet been decided whether or not France's
Alstom would be chosen to supply the steam turbines for the Taishan reactors.
Areva originally planned to sell its reactors to the Yangjiang nuclear
plant, also in Guangdong, but China decided in late summer to use its own
second-generation CPR1000 technology in the project.
Insiders said that China had grown frustrated at the pace of the
negotiations, and wanted to proceed with the Yangjiang project as soon as
possible in order to meet its nuclear capacity targets.
"The decision (on Yangjiang) had to be made in summer," Lauvergeon told
reporters, "and it is too late to make that decision now."
Areva also lost out to Westinghouse in the bid for China's first four
third-generation reactors earlier this year.
Westinghouse's AP1000 reactor will go into operation for the first time at
the Sanmen nuclear project in eastern China's Zhejiang province in 2013,
according to plans, and it will also be employed at the Haiyang project in
Shandong, also on the east coast.
It will be the key technology used in China's efforts to build its "own
brand" of third-generation reactor. The government has approved construction,
and work will begin on all four of the Westinghouse reactors in 2009.
As a result of the long US moratorium on nuclear power plant construction,
Westinghouse's AP1000 has not yet been used commercially. Areva's EPR, designed
in 1993, has already been built in France and Finland, and the project in
Taishan will become the world's fifth such reactor.
Stephen Kidd, director of strategy and research at the World Nuclear
Association, said that the French company lost out to Westinghouse, now owned by
Japan's Toshiba, because it was unwilling to transfer key technologies and
thereby serve Chinese efforts to localize advanced PWR technology.
"(Areva) wanted to keep the blueprints for their reactor design to
themselves," Kidd said.
Lauvergeon was reluctant to comment on why Areva had failed to win the bid.
"I don't want to interpret what the Chinese government has chosen," she
said.
"Certain choices have been made, and made through competition. We are in
worldwide competition and that's how life is," she added.
As for the prospects of Areva participating in further third-generation
reactor bids, she said, "We'll see again in a number of years."
david.stanway@xinhuafinance.com
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