French utility EDF Group and construction corporation AREVA reacted with financial adjustments to a new government benchmark price for the underground radioactive waste storage facility known as Cigeo (Centre Industriel de Stockage Geologique).
EDF said it would add $871.24 million in provisions to accommodate the benchmark or reference price that was changed by a Ministry of Ecology order from a range of $21.78 billion to $49.47 billion to a benchmark of $27.2 billion. AREVA said that it would integrate the impact of the revised quote in its 2015 accounts, “taking a complimentary provision of approximately $272.26 million on the basis of the methodology used to determine the existing provision.”
EDF had based provisions on a benchmark of $22.65 billion for the underground storage facility that is expected to hold intermediate and high-level radioactive waste at the site east of Paris in the Meuse/Haute Marne area near Bure.
The facility design involves a series of tunnels in a area with high concentrations of clay soils. The facility will be run by nuclear waste handler Andra.
Andra currently manages two radioactive waste disposal facilities, including one for low- an intermediate-level waste and one for very low level waste. The Cigeo facility, if completed on time, would be among the first national repositories for spent nuclear fuel.
The new benchmark price for the facility will be revised when significant milestones in project construction and implementation are reached. The costs currently are based on a 100-year time line. Construction is expected to cost about twice as much as operational costs for that period. One estimate put the cost of construction at $21.56 billion with the operating costs set at $9.58 billion.
Construction is expected to start in 2020. It is expected it will take five years of construction before operations can begin.
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