Brussels, 22/06/2004 (Agence Europe) - By request of France, Germany and Sweden, the European Commission has launched an investigation into the acquisition of 50% of Enrichment Technology Company (ETC) by the French public company Areva. Areva is active in all stages of nuclear energy and the transportation and distribution of electricity. ETC (which is wholly owned by Urenco, itself jointly owned by the German companies RWE and E.ON, the Dutch Ultra-Centrifuge Nederland Limited, and Britain's BNFL) is active in the development, design and construction of centrifuges. The first stage of the investigation started on 17 May, and will continue in order to determine the effects of the operation on the markets for enriching equipment and low enriched uranium for civilian use.
The enrichment stage of uranium accounts for a large proportion of the production costs of nuclear fuel (35%) and nuclear electricity (7%). The technology which was initially used to enrich uranium, gaseous diffusion, was gradually replaced by that of gaseous centrifugation, which is less expensive. For the time being, Areva continues to use the gaseous diffusion technology, using Eurodif, the largest uranium-enrichment factory in Europe, but hopes to change this. By taking joint control of ETC, Areva will be able to access centrifugation technology, of which the other main players on the enriched uranium market have also developed equipment, or are in the process of so doing- Urenco and Minatom/Teex (Russia), and soon USEC (United States).
The Commission fears that Areva could, after this operation, be tempted to reduce its research and development efforts in equipment for enrichment by the process of centrifugation. With 80% of the European enriched uranium market for Areva and Urenco, the Commission is also concerned about a possible increase in prices for enriched uranium used as a fuel in nuclear power stations, especially as competition from companies in third countries is already kept to a minimum by trade barriers.