The Belgian soap opera is coming to an end for Engie. For the past six months, the French group has been discussing with the government the expansion of two of the seven nuclear reactors it operates in Belgium. A deal could not be found at the end of December as planned. The negotiations continued these days and on Tuesday the disagreements persisted. But the prime minister, Alexander De Croo, “wants to achieve it before the weekend,” confesses a source close to the French group.
The Belgian nuclear safety authority has also set the end of January as the deadline to start the necessary procedures for the expansion of the Doel (4) and Tihange (3) plants beyond 2025. Engie must carry out engineering studies to obtain the regulatory approvals. This agreement will in fact be a protocol that will set the financial conditions. The two parties will have to reach a final text that legally binds them.
The Belgian government puts pressure on Engie
Two years ago, Belgium confirmed its exit from nuclear power in 2025 leaving the possibility of expanding two reactors for ten years. Today, the government wants to launch this process as quickly as possible to ensure electricity production beyond 2025 and avoid shortages.
Engie has been dragging its feet for several years, wanting to shut down all its power plants by 2025. But the government is pushing. Two weeks ago, the provisions imposed on the French group for the dismantling of reactors and the management of nuclear waste increased significantly by 3,300 million euros. A decision that caused a 6.5% drop in Engie’s shares.
The French group wants to set the economic conditions for this extension, the uncertainty of which weighs on the price of its shares and worries investors. Its cost, around one billion euros, will be shared equally between the Belgian government and Engie. It remains to set the remuneration for ten additional years of operation of the two reactors. It must be determined by a regulated rate, which allows these investments to be covered.
Decide on the final waste bill
Engie also asks for a controlled cost of waste management to have visibility in the final bill, which is what its shareholders are asking for. In mid-December it went from 15 to 18,000 million euros and could, according to the terms of the agreement, touch 20,000 million.
The current negotiation is in charge of Engie, on the French side. However, the Belgian government has tried to increase the pressure by raising the discussions to the political level. According to our information, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo raised the issue with Emmanuel Macron at the European Union summit in Versailles last March. But the President of the Republic refused to get involved, leaving Engie in charge of the talks that “are complex enough so that politicians do not add more confusion”, is heard in the French countryside.
Source: BFM TV
