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French firm signs deal to build nuclear power plant in India

RIA Novosti

04/02/2009 14:54 NEW DELHI, February 4 (RIA Novosti) - A memorandum of understanding has been signed by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) and France's Areva on construction of a nuclear power plant in western India, the companies said on Wednesday.

The nuclear plant will be built using French technology near the village of Jaitapur in the western state of Maharastra on the Arabian Sea.

"With signing of this MoU, it is now possible to have technical cooperation between NPCIL and Areva to work on the setting up of two to six Areva-built EPR reactors on NPCIL's Jaitapur site, including lifetime fuel supply for these units," the joint press release read.

The memorandum was signed in New Delhi by the presidents of the two companies in the presence of French Foreign Trade Minister Anne-Marie Idrac and Prithviraj Chavan, a minister in the Indian prime minister's office.

NPCIL has 17 nuclear power plants with a total installed capacity of 4,120 MW in operation while five others with a total installed capacity of 2,660 MW are under construction.

The agreement comes after Areva and India's Atomic Energy Department signed a commercial agreement last December for the supply of 300 tons of uranium to be used in NPCIL nuclear reactors under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

The supply of uranium from France would be the first such shipment since a 34-year embargo on international nuclear trade with India was lifted in September last year.

Experts believe the final contract could take 18 months to prepare due to the complexity of the technical and financial details and the necessity of carrying out seismic, climatic and other analyses.

On September 30, India and France signed a cooperation agreement in the nuclear energy sphere that opened the door to building the plant.

India has similar agreements with the United States and Russia, which is finishing construction of the first two reactors at a plant in the south of India. In December, Moscow and Delhi signed an agreement on the construction of another four reactors at the Kudankulam site and plans to build new nuclear power plants elsewhere in the country.