London (Platts)--28Jan2008
India's DAE will take a 3% stake in France's Jules Horowitz reactor project under a scientific cooperation agreement signed January 25 in New Delhi. The agreement was signed by Anil Kakodkar, head of the Department of Atomic Energy, and by Alain Bugat, chairman of the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, which is responsible for the project to build a 100-MW (thermal) materials test reactor at the Cadarache site in southern France.
DAE will be the ninth partner in the JHR project; the three French partners - the CEA, Electricite de France and Areva -- and five foreign research organizations signed a consortium agreement for the project in March 2007.
Construction of the JHR is projected to cost 500 million euros (in euros of 2005) on top of Eur 70 million the CEA spent during the design phase. Up to now, the CEA has been financing 50%, the other French partners 30% and the foreign partners 20%, but that could change with the entry of DAE, a CEA official said. Construction is scheduled to start this year and first criticality is scheduled for 2013.