Greenpeace on Tuesday called on the French government to stop “contracts on uranium trade” between France and Russia as deliveries continue despite the war in Ukraine, in the absence of international sanctions on Russian civilian nuclear power. In a press release, “Greenpeace calls for the definitive cessation of all nuclear trade with Russia”.
The NGO also calls for “the termination of all current contracts between the French nuclear industry and Rosatom (the Russian giant, editor’s note) as well as its subsidiaries, starting with the contracts concerning the uranium trade between Tenex, a subsidiary of Rosatom, and respectively EDF and Orano”.
While the war in Ukraine is raging, “it’s business as usual between France, Europe and Russia. Scandalous”, denounces Pauline Boyer, in charge of nuclear and energy transition campaigns at Greenpeace France.
On Tuesday morning, “dozens of drums of enriched uranium and ten containers of natural uranium from Russia” were transported by cargo ship to the port of Dunkirk, to be loaded “on board a train and several trucks including the destinations could be Pierrelatte in France and/or Lingen, in Germany”, estimated the NGO.
Fratome confirms delivery
The constructor of nuclear power plants and fuel supplier Framatome, a subsidiary of EDF, simply clarified to AFP on Tuesday evening that it was a “delivery of material for the manufacture of nuclear fuels” intended for its Romans-sur-Isère plant (Drôme). This fuel is then intended for its “customers and in particular the French nuclear fleet”, he specified.
The nuclear group Orano (ex-Areva) had previously indicated that “these transports did not concern either its materials or its facilities”. On the other hand, he confirmed to AFP that he had delivered to Russia “five or six” transports of reprocessed uranium (URT) which he owned until October, to the Seversk plant of the Russian public nuclear conglomerate Rosatom, in under a contract signed in 2020 for a total volume of 1,150 tonnes.
Orano: “The last transport took place in October”
“When the war broke out, there were no sanctions, but we took the decision to settle this contract, and the last transport took place in October,” an Orano spokesperson told AFP. AFP. Resulting from fuel processing, URT or recycled uranium can be reused to produce new fuel after being converted and then re-enriched. This URT was exported to Russia because Orano “does not have a conversion workshop”, underlined the spokesperson.
EDF signed in 2018 a contract of 600 million euros with a subsidiary of Rosatom, Tenex, for “the recycling of reprocessed uranium from EDF”. “The decision to continue certain relations is taken in particular in compliance with international sanctions”, commented EDF in an email sent to AFP, without referring to a contract in particular.