AREVA and EDF will conclude a “strategic partnership” covering all activities of common interest and the French government will investigate the possibility of EDF taking an equity stake in Areva, the office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy (pictured) said in a communique.These were among several decisions taken by Sarkozy after a meeting of the high-level Nuclear Policy Council earlier Tuesday with a view to strengthening “the French nuclear sector, a strategic element of France's energy and industry policy,” the Elysee Palace said in the statement.In the nuclear power plant export business, the two companies will set up an “organization based on EDF's competence in architect-engineering” when that is required by customers' needs, the president's office said. It added the agreement would be non-exclusive and “does not call into question the capacity of the two companies to co-operate with other industrial enterprises in the sector.”Areva, the French nuclear plant vendor, and EDF, the world's largest nuclear utility, have been vying for leadership of the French nuclear industry since last fall when new EDF CEO Henri Proglio said EDF should be in charge of the sector.The animosity grew after a consortium comprising both companies, plus other French firms, lost a bid to sell nuclear power plants to the United Arab Emirates to a tightly knit Korean consortium.Areva and EDF also sparred openly in the media earlier in 2010 over contracts at both the front and back end of the fuel cycle.In a quest to “continually improve the competitiveness” of Areva's flagship 1,700MW-class EPR reactor model, which Sarkozy's office said “has a very important potential” in international markets, there will be an “optimisation of its design and its construction” while experiences “from projects underway” will be taken into account.At the same time, the Elysee Palace said, the range of products proposed by the French nuclear industry will be extended to meet customer needs.Certification of a 1,200MW-class Atmea reactor that Areva is designing with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries “will be pursued,” and EDF, GDF and “potentially other utilities” will be associated with that effort, it said.To finance an ambitious investment program, up to 15% of Areva's equity capiwill be sold by the end of 2010 to “industrial and financial investors with whom negotiations have already been engaged,” it added.Those investors are understood to be MHI and the sovereign investment funds of Qatar and Kuwait.
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