French nuclear fuel company Orano said Monday it is moving ahead with operations to prepare for construction of a used nuclear fuel processing and recycling facility in China.
Orano engineering subsidiary Orano Projets sealed a deal with China National Nuclear Corp. branch CNLA to move ahead with the work. The agreement “marks a new step in the discussions to launch by the end of 2018 the project to build a recycling plant in China with a capacity of 800 tons,” Orano Projets Chairman Patrick Jacq said in a press release Monday. “Some 100 people are mobilized within Orano to perform this preparatory work.”
The announcement did not discuss details of the preparatory work. Reuters quoted an Orano spokeswoman as saying the activity would focus on project management and quality control documentation, and would cost roughly 20 million euros ($23.4 million).
Ten years of discussions have not yet resulted in a deal for Orano to supply the plant technology itself, Reuters reported.
Orano was called New AREVA until January. The company as it exists today resulted from a corporate reorganization starting in 2016 that led to the sale of AREVA’s nuclear power business to French utility EDF and other entities. Orano now focuses on nuclear materials development and waste management, encompassing mining, conversion-enrichment, used fuel recycling, nuclear logistics, dismantlement, and engineering.
