Investigation of secret nuclear deals between France’s EDF and China

The Inspector General of Finance (IGF) is intensely interested in the first agreement between EDF and CGNPC that defined a partnership whose goal it was to build nuclear power plants together. The plants would be equipped with a new reactor type, the latest and greatest alternative to the catastrophically over-budget and now stalled European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) that Areva had been pushing for years.

That EDF, which was mostly government-owned, could even envision a deal that would hurt Areva, which was wholly government-owned, was simply too galling..

Blowing Up Now: The Transfer Of French Nuclear Technology To China Zero Hedge, 12/28/2012 Wolf Richter

Technology transfers, whether on a contractual basis or through theft, have long bedeviled companies that want to benefit from China’s cheap labor and 1.3 billion consumers. Automakers, aerospace companies, technology outfits…. it’s the price they have to pay.

But when it seeped out that the largely state-owned nuclear industry in France was trying to sell its secrets to China to make a deal, oh là là!…..

Nuclear energy—where France has also been proudly on the forefront—was going to be next. Until the scandal of massive nuclear-technology transfers broke into the open. The central figure, Henri Proglio, CEO of mega-utility EDF that owns France’s 58 active nuclear reactors but derives almost half of its revenues from outside France, has come under investigation by the Inspector General of Finance (IGF). Of particular interest: the agreement to sell nuclear and industrial secrets and knowhow to China in order to conclude a deal that had been “aborted.”….

On Thursday, the government announced that it would try to shed some light on the relationship between the French nuclear industry and its Chinese partners. And on Friday, it was leaked that the government, which owns 84.4% of EDF, will sack Proglio in February or March and replace him with the CEO of state-owned railroad SNCF, Guillaume Pépy, who immediately denied being “candidate for anything.” The revolving door of state-owned companies.

The intrigue goes back years. In January 2012, during the presidential campaign, a confidential agreement bubbled up, signed in Beijing on April 29, 2010, by Proglio and He Yu, the CEO of China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group (CGNPC). It envisioned a tight partnership concerning the “design” of nuclear reactors and the transfer of nuclear technologies—to the point where Chinese specialists would be associated with the construction of reactors … in France…..

The IGF is intensely interested in the first agreement between EDF and CGNPC that defined a partnership whose goal it was to build nuclear power plants together. The plants would be equipped with a new reactor type, the latest and greatest alternative to the catastrophically over-budget and now stalled European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) that Areva had been pushing for years. That EDF, which was mostly government-owned, could even envision a deal that would hurt Areva, which was wholly government-owned, was simply too galling….. http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-12-28/blowing-transfer-french-nuclear-technology-china

December 31, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, secrets,lies and civil liberties

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