Areva and EDF Have A Gallic Contretemps! Mon Dieu.....

Probably The Kazakhs and the people from Niger realise China will give them a better price for uranium.

Energy security???? Are you sure Mr Miliband and Mr Brown?

Bitter row throws French nuclear industry into turmoil


Adam Sage, Paris -- The Times, January 19, 2010





The French nuclear industry is in turmoil as uranium supplies

have dried up and the treatment of spent fu el has been blocked

amid an increasingly bitter row between the heads of its two

main state operators.





EDF, the electricity group that runs 58 reactors in France, said

that Areva, the nuclear energy group, had stopped uranium

deliveries on January 4 and was refusing to take away spent

fuel for reprocessing.





''The transport of combustibles isn't working at the moment,''

Anne Lauvergeon, the chairwoman of Areva, said.





As a result, used fuel is remaining at EDF sites instead of being

reprocessed at La Hague treatment plant in northern France.





Mrs Lauvergeon blamed a breakdown in talks over a new 800

million contract with EDF to process spent fuel.





''We've been talking for too long,' she said, calling on President

Sarkozy's Government to resolve the dispute.





Although Areva supplies 68 per cent of the uranium used in

EDF's reactors, which themselves produce 77 per cent of

electricity in France, the electricity group said it had enough

stocks to last several months without envisaging power cuts.





A spokesman said that it could keep spent fuel at its plants

without risk of a radioactive leak.





But the dispute is certain to damage the reputation of the two

nuclear operators, which are both among the world's biggest.





As insults flew between the two state-owned groups, which are

both significant players in Britain's energy sector, Areva denied

that it had stopped uranium supplies but confirmed EDF's claims

about the block on treating spent fuel.





The dispute comes amid tense relations between Mrs

Lauvergeon and Henri Proglio, who followed his appointment

as chairman of EDF in November with a call for a shake-up of

the French nuclear sector.





Their squabble has been cited as one of the factors behind

France's failure to secure a 30 billion contract to build reactors

in Abu Dhabi.





The contract went to a South Korean consortium led by Korea

Electric Power, and Mrs Lauvergeon implicitly blamed EDF for

failing to back her in the negotiations.





''I fully assume my responsibilities and those of Areva, but I don't

intend to assume other people's,'' she said.





She added: ''South Korea was ready to do anything to win, in

terms of price and in state financing.