AREVA said Tuesday it anticipates sealing an agreement this year to provide technology for a new used nuclear fuel treatment and recycling plant in China.
Executives from New AREVA and the China National Nuclear Corp. signed a “memorandum of commercial agreement” for the facility alongside a meeting in Beijing of French President Emmanuel Macron and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The memorandum resulted from several months of negotiations, AREVA said in a press release. The company did not discuss a more specific timeline for completing negotiations or the value of the anticipated contract. However, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said in Beijing that the deal should be finalized this spring and worth 10 billion euros ($11.9 billion ), Reuters reported.
“Both New AREVA and its partner CNNC share a sense of satisfaction at the signing of this memorandum of commercial agreement,” AREVA said in a follow-up email to RadWaste Monitor. “It marks an important step towards the signing, in 2018, of a contract for a recycling plant in China. Discussions will continue with a view to signing the contract under favorable conditions for both parties.”
New AREVA, formed in 2016 as part of AREVA’s corporate restructuring to manage the nuclear life-cycle business, would provide the technology for the new plant. The recycling facility would have an 800-ton capacity using systems modeled on AREVA’s La Hague spent fuel recycling facility and MELOX mixed-oxide fuel production plant, the release says.
