AREVA fosters industry discussions on Nuclear Economics in its 3rd Safety Alliance Seminar

AREVA welcomed 30 operational and financial leaders of the world’s largest nuclear utilities, from 13 countries, to discuss Nuclear Economics during its latest Safety Alliance Seminar held today in London, England.

The full-day seminar gave attendees the opportunity to share their issues and successes in reinforcing the economics of operating nuclear power plants, and in finding ways to enhance nuclear new-build financing packages in light of our industry’s dynamics and the evolution of investors’ expectations.

In his keynote speech, Pierre Aubouin, Chief Financial Executive Officer, said “We have planned this seminar around presentations and workshops that will look at topics relevant to all of seminar participants, as nuclear plant operators. In the post-Fukushima, post-Lehman world, profitability and financing of nuclear projects triggers new questions from stakeholders and we are here to share best practices and potential ways to continue to address them successfully.”

At the conclusion of the seminar, Ruben Lazo, AREVA Chief Commercial Officer, added: “The previous two seminars paved the way toward an even closer collaboration between AREVA and its customers, enabling us to continue to provide utilities with the support they need to achieve their safety imperatives, while reinforcing public confidence in nuclear power. Today’s seminar has successfully shown us how we can work together not only to get the financial community to better understand the economics of our industry, but also, and more importantly, to make nuclear projects more attractive financially by collaborating on project risk mitigation and innovative financing schemes.” 

This series of seminars is part of the Safety Alliance program, a unique initiative within the industry, launched last year to support utilities in their safety assessments, and to help them demonstrate and upgrade the safety of their nuclear plant fleets. In addition to the customer seminars, the program comprises a portfolio of more than 30 safety solutions, and a dedicated research and development program. As of today, over 50 Safety Alliance projects have been launched in 13 countries with 25 utilities operating 200 nuclear power plants.