Areva - History

History

Areva has its roots in Framatome, which was founded in 1958 by several companies of the French industrial giant The Schneider Group along with Empain, Merlin Gérin, and the American Westinghouse, in order to license Westinghouse's pressurized water reactor (PWR) technology and develop a bid for Chooz 1 in Belgium. Called Franco-Américaine de Constructions Atomiques (Framatome), the original company consisted of four engineers, one each from each of the parent companies. The original mission of the company was to act as a nuclear engineering firm and to develop a nuclear power plant that was to be identical to Westinghouse's existing product specifications. The first European plant of Westinghouse design was by then already under construction in Italy.

Meanwhile, the Électricité de France (EDF), the French government-owned electric utility, in opposition to the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (CEA), maintained an interest in PWR technology. The Chooz contract offered the EDF, which joined with the Belgian electric utilities to call for the Chooz bids, the opportunity to explore PWR without offending French national pride in its homegrown GCR technology. By the beginning of 1960, only two bids remained in contention; midway through 1960 Framatome received informal permission to begin design work on the Chooz reactor. A formal contract was signed in September, 1961 for Framatome to deliver a turnkey system, that is, not only the reactor, but an entire, ready-to-use system of piping, cabling, supports, and other auxiliary systems, propelling Framatome from a nuclear engineering firm to an industrial contractor.

By 1981, France was pressing for even more control of Framatome. In January, Westinghouse agreed to sell its remaining 15 percent share to Creusot-Loire, which now owned 66 percent, and to cede complete marketing independence to Framatome. In February, the Belgian Baron Empain sold his 35 percent interest in Creusot-Loire to Paribas, a French government-linked banking group.

The May 1981 Socialist electoral victory in France intensified calls for greater government control of Framatome. A January 1982 company reorganization simultaneously strengthened French public and private control of the company by allowing Creusot-Loire to increase its share of the company while increasing CEA say in the running of the firm.

In March 2010, Areva announced on the design of a new reactor type capable of breaking down actinides created as a product of nuclear fission.

In December 2011, Areva suspended building work at several sites in France, Africa and the United States, one day after forecasting a €1.6 billion ($2.1 billion) loss, after Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster hit the value of its uranium mining assets. The investment freeze came amid speculation about job losses, with a minister denying claims from unions that a restructuring plan would see 1,200 posts cut in France next year. Areva halted "capacity extensions" at its La Hague Reprocessing Plant, in northern France, at its Melox factory in the southwest and at two sites attached to its Tricastin power plant in the south. Work has also stopped on extensions to uranium mines in Bakouma in the Central African Republic, Trekkopje in Namibia and Ryst Kuil in South Africa, and caused a potential delay in construction until a capital solution is secured for the Eagle Rock Enrichment Facility in the United States. Between 1,200 and 1,500 job losses are expected in Germany, which is abandoning nuclear energy.

As of 2012, the disastrous UraMin mining deal and allegations of spying are holding Areva back as it struggles to recover from last year's Japanese Fukushima nuclear disaster, and they risk embarrassing France's president as he bids for re-election.