Merger of Edvance & Framatome : An opportunity for ORINOX?

Châteaubriant, April 2018  

The nuclear of tomorrow, a major development challenge for the EDF Group.

Created in May 2017 by EDF (80%) and Framatome (20%), the engineering company Edvance, chaired by Thierry SCHALL, employs nearly 1000 engineers, working on nuclear issues.

Edvance was born from the desire to refocus the engineering of the two groups around nuclear power and thus, shows the creation of a “common” engineering. Edvance is particularly involved in the design and construction of nuclear power and future orders (such as Hinkley Point C or EPR 2, which is an optimized version of the EPR).

EDF is currently facing numerous industrial challenges, particularly in the nuclear field. The French government was the instigator of this “merger”. It wanted EDF and AREVA Nuclear Power, now known as FRAMATOME, to merge their engineering activities. The latter supports EDF ingénierie by participating in the design and manufacture of nuclear power plants, which enables EDF to rise to current challenges.

Among these challenges, we find:

• The indispensable preservation of France’s nuclear assets
• The commissioning of the EPRs in Flamanville and Taishan
• The development of Hinkley Point C
• Conquering new markets

To take up these challenges, 14,000 employees from 18 countries joined the EDF Group on 1st January and are now part of FRAMATOME.

FRAMATOME’s 5 strategic axes :

• Sustainable & recognized expertise
• Execution Performance
• Agile Organization
• Safe and competitive solutions
• Strengthening international development

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Nuclear power needed this restructuring in order to improve the performance of the French stock. Tomorrow’s issues are today’s concerns.
The construction of nuclear power is thought and anticipated through this type of merger of skills and knowledge. Their synergy will increase the efficiency, performance and control of all EDF projects.

Therefore, the birth of Edvance and its joint work with Framatome, places the EDF Group at the centre of attention in the French nuclear industry.

Thierry SCHALL, Chairman of Edvance, speaks about the merger:

“Our common objective is indeed to create a nuclear island engineering world reference in the service of improving the competitiveness of the French industry”.

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Some benefits for ORINOX?

As of today’s date, it is quite hard to tell what will be the benefits that ORINOX will get, or not, thanks to this merger. We must wait and see what happens next. 

For now, one threat is raised: the arrival, over time, of new competitors on EPR projects, old private turf of SOFINEL and SEP’s members (businesses association that ORINOX is part of since September 2015). 

Watch this space then.

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