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Nuclear: Orano secures major funding from the European Investment Bank

by AI | 10.Mar 2025 | Europe in brief AI

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has granted a loan of 400 million euros to the French group Orano, specialized in nuclear fuels, which will use it to partially finance an extension of a uranium enrichment plant.

This photograph shows the spent nuclear fuel storage pool at Orano la Hague, a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant, in La Hague, northwestern France, on March 7, 2024. (Photo: DAMIEN MEYER / AFP)

Paris – The French uranium cycle specialist Orano (formerly Areva) announced on Monday that it has secured a 400 million euro loan for its project to increase its enrichment capacity from the European Investment Bank (EIB), marking its return to French nuclear energy.

This approximately 25-year loan will finance part of the expansion project of the Georges Besse II enrichment plant located in Tricastin in the south of France, representing a total investment of 1.7 billion euros.

The EIB, the financial arm of the European Commission, had not supported a project in the nuclear sector in France since 2008. Nuclear financing has historically been a subject of debate within the EU.

According to Nicolas Maes, CEO of Orano, the increase in these capacities “will allow 120 million homes to be supplied with low-carbon energy.”

The invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 highlighted the need to reduce dependence on the Russian giant Rosatom for the nuclear power plants’ fuel cycle. (March 10, 2025)