Areva scores with Jordan

Areva appears to have won the latest round of high-stakes international competition in the nuclear industry.

Jordanian King Abdullah II’s visit to France to meet with French President Nicholas Sarkozy coincided with an announcement that French nuclear giant Areva will form a joint venture with the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission on mining uranium in the country.

And given Jordanian officials had already announced earlier in the week that it was closing in on finishing a deal with an unnamed French company for the construction of a reactor, Areva would appear to have the contract all but sewn up.

On the mining side, the new joint venture will explore uranium resources in the Central Jordan province.

Officials from Jordan estimate that Areva could mine as much as 130,000 tonnes of uranium from the country’s 1.2 billion tonnes of phosphate reserves.

The country is also estimated to have 80,000 tonnes of uranium outside of its phosphate reserves.

In a statement Areva applauded Jordan for its transparency and its providing all nuclear safety and non-proliferation safeguards.

“These conditions will enable Areva to offer its expertise as an end-to-end stakeholder in the nuclear cycle, to make Jordan’s program a success,” the company said.

Jordan signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with France in May, and has similar agreements with China and Canada. Such agreements must be in place before Western companies can have access to the given market.

Sarkozy has offered France’s support to Muslim nations seeking civilian nuclear technologies. The country has similar accords with Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

Jordan has stated that it wants to be the model of peaceful nuclear development in the region and is aiming at having a nuclear power station running by 2015. It wants 30% of its total energy to come from nuclear power by the end of 2030.

Currently it generates most of its power from fossil fuels — 95% of which have to be imported.

Areva is the world’s largest nuclear power company with manufacturing facilities in 43 countries.

The good news on the international front was paired with house cleaning at home, as the company announced it would invest roughly $30 million to improve the environmental and health monitoring of the Tricastin nuclear site in France.

The massive site has come under heavy criticism in France for a uranium leak and the contamination of staff with low doses of radiation.