Areva - Reference Document 2016

BUSINESS OVERVIEW

6.4 Operations

Market and competitive position

Projects for the construction of Generation III reactors designed by AREVA are

currently among themost advanced in the world. Its competitors areWestinghouse/

Toshiba, General Electric of the United States, Hitachi of Japan, Mitsubishi of Japan,

FAAE of Russia, AECL of Canada, KHNP of South Korea and Rosatom of Russia.

Despite a slowdown due to the Fukushima accident, reactor construction is still

a market with substantial growth prospects (see Section 6.1.2 for a discussion of

nuclear power markets).

Outlook and development goals

In addition to these activities, and with the objective of always offering high-quality

services and assistance, the entity set up a program to optimize and improve the

EPR reactor’s competitiveness. This program, established jointly by AREVA and

EDF and endowed with shared resources, illustrates the Large Projects Business

Unit’s commitment to bringing together under a single leadership all optimization

activities undertaken by the two groups since 2008 to harvest operating experience

and evolve the concept to reduce costs and secure project execution.

6.4.2.1.4.

Components

Businesses

The Components Business Unit mainly designs and manufactures:

large forgings or castings and machined parts used in the manufacturing of

heavy components for the nuclear steamsupply systemand in process industries

such as petrochemicals;

heavy components: reactor vessels, vessel heads and internals, steamgenerators,

pressurizers, primary system legs and support elements

(1)

, which are the main

components required to manufacture nuclear steam supply systems;

mobile components: reactor coolant pump sets (pump, motor and sealing

system) for the primary cooling system and control rod drive mechanisms that

regulate the functioning of the reactor core.

The “monitoring/diagnostic systems” product line has been assigned to the

Installed Base Business Unit as from February 1, 2016. All of the other product

lines contributing to instrumentation and control operations were combined in the

Instrumentation and Control Business Unit as from July 1, 2016.

Operations and highlights

In 2016, anomalies were discovered in the manufacturing and inspection of

forgings at the Creusot plant, which led to the verification of all manufacturing

files produced at that site (more than 6,000 files for nuclear components).

This mobilized considerable resources, including close to 150 people and the

digitization of approximately 2.5 pages of documentation. These verifications

and the processing of any new anomalies that may arise will continue in 2017.

As soon as the first anomalies were discovered, the Creusot site strengthened

the inspection and traceability of manufacturing in progress. The deployment of

a quality improvement plan, especially quality culture improvement, continues.

On December 19, 2016, AREVA NP met a new and important milestone by

presenting the work completed and the results obtained in the different areas

of this program to EDF.

The discovery of high concentrations of carbon on the channel heads of steam

generators in EDF’s fleet also gave rise to a large program of inspections, tests

and analyses to demonstrate the suitability for service of those components and

to recommend strengthenedmanufacturing processes to ASN guaranteeing that

these phenomena are under control. The channel heads concerned are mainly

subcontracted parts and are not forged at le Creusot. The analyses provided

in 2016 enabled the restart of the reactors in the EDF fleet.

The Saint-Marcel plant completed themanufacturing of six 900MWe replacement

steam generators, but the quality deviations detected on a certain number of

forgings used in these steam generators during the Creusot audit resulted in a

significant postponement of the receipt of the Conformity Certificates.

The Saint-Marcel plant launched the manufacturing of two new quadruplets

(2)

of 1,300 MWe replacement steam generators for EDF.

The Jeumont plant delivered the Flamanville 3 and Taishan 2 pressurized control

rod drive mechanisms. All of the pads of the thermal barriers concerned by

welding defects detected in 2015 have been repaired. Manufacturing of EDF

900 MWe and 1,300 MWe replacement mechanisms began in 2016. All of the

procurement for the Fanchenggang 3&4 project (first CGN project of a Hualong

pump) has begun.

Human and industrial resources

HEAVY EQUIPMENT

The Creusot plant in France’s Saône-et-Loire Department has production

capacity for forgings and machined parts. Its production plant consists mainly

of machining facilities and a forge equipped with two presses (9,000 metric tons

and 11,300 metric tons). The site is deploying a large-scale quality plan to deal

with the anomalies identified during the audit, strengthen procedures and control

of processes, and develop cooperative programs with the steelmaker Industeel

(ArcelorMittal group). The foundry operations taken over from Industeel made it

possible to cast and beginmachining five volutes for the reactor coolant pump sets.

The Saint-Marcel plant near Chalon-sur-Saône in France’s Saône-et-Loire

Department is dedicated to the manufacturing of heavy nuclear equipment. The

main building covers a surface area of 39,000 m

and has a hoisting capacity of

1,000 metric tons. In 2016, a decision was made to invest in a pre-manufacturing

workshop for primary legs to be used in the Hinkley Point EPR project. The plant has

already begun industrial deployment of automated ultrasound inspection systems.

MOBILE EQUIPMENT

The Jeumont plant in northern France manufactures mobile equipment for the

nuclear island. It specializes in the design and manufacturing of reactor coolant

pump sets and control rod drive mechanisms, as well as the replacement parts

for this equipment. The Jeumont plant has a reactor coolant pump set test center

in Maubeuge. AREVA NP is also present in China through the AREVA Dongfang

Joint Venture formed between AREVA NP and the DEC group to manufacture

AREVA NP-designed reactor coolant pump sets for the Chinese market.

Market and competitive position

HEAVY EQUIPMENT

AREVA NP is a leading supplier of heavy equipment leader in France.

There are two suppliers of nuclear forgings: Creusot Forge and its leading

competitor, the Japanese company Japan Steel Works (JSW), which together cover

(1) Equipment used to support and hold the main components of the primary cooling system. It also reduces the vibration to which the components are subjected during earthquarkes

or accident conditions.

(2) Set of four steam generators manufactured for a single reactor.

2016 AREVA

REFERENCE DOCUMENT