Areva sweet-talks NPCIL, offers uranium mine stake

French energy major Areva, which is supply nuclear fuel for Indian reactors, has accessible partnership stakes in the direction of the state-run Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) in its uranium producing mines abroad. "We have accessible to NPCIL and the Atomic Energy Commission to invest through us in our new and existing uranium mining projects," chairman and managing director, Areva India, Arthur de Montalembert told HT in a limited chat.

"NPCIL has shown interest and talks are succeeding for a stake in some uranium mines in Africa."Areva is one the largest producers of uranium and has mines in Canada, Kazakhstan and Africa.The company will provide NPCIL with six of its European Pressurised Reactors (EPR) in an estimated R60, 000 crore deal. It is hoping designed for an early on start to the construction of one of the world's biggest nuclear power complexes at Jaitpur in Maharashtra.

The EPR reactors to be complete for Jaitpur nuclear power plant is a third-generation reactor and is touted as the most advanced in its class. The Jaitpur plant is single of several nuclear power developments planned for a 200-km strip of the Maharashtra coast, south of Mumbai, with a total generating capacity of around 33,000-MW. India at present has 4,700-MW of nuclear generating capacity.