Atmea joint venture gets EC approval

The European Commission announced on 30October that it has cleared the creation of a joint venture betweenAreva of France and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) of Japan. Thejoint venture - to be known as Atmea - will be responsible for thedesign, licensing, certification, marketing, sale, construction andcommissioning of a single type of 'nuclear island' to be installed innuclear power plants - the reactor, coolant system and the steamgeneration units. The nuclear island to be produced by the Atmea jointventure will include a 1100 MWe pressurized water reactor, which willcombine technologies of both companies. The reactor would be marketedat emerging countries wishing to begin nuclear power programs, as wellas established markets such as the USA and Europe. Both Areva and MHIwould continue to offer nuclear islands with higher capacityindependently of each other. The commission concluded that theactivities of Areva and MHI are geographically complementary, sinceAreva is mainly active in Europe and MHI in Japan. In addition, thecommission decided that it was unlikely the joint venture would be usedto strengthen the competitiveness of each parent company as Atmea'sactivities would be limited to one particular type of nuclear island,which is technically different from those designs offered separately byAreva and MHI. The two companies signed a memorandum of understandingto form a joint venture on 19 October 2006 in Tokyo. They then signed amemorandum of understanding in July 2007 to set the framework of thejoint venture. The venture is to be based in Paris, with Stefan vomScheidt as CEO and Makoto Kanda as his deputy.