OREANDA-NEWS. November 01, 2010. In Paris during the official visit of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the President of Kazakhstan to France, Anne Lauvergeon, AREVA CEO, and Vladimir Shkolnik, KAZATOMPROM Chairman of the Board, have signed an agreement for establishment of a fuel fabrication joint-venture, reported the press-centre of KASE.

This new agreement emphasizes the intention of both companies to strengthen their strategic partnership in the field of front-end nuclear cycle.

The new company owned 51 % by Kazatomprom and 49 % by AREVA, is to build a new fuel assembly manufacturing line based on the AREVA design for the Ulba facility, located in Ust-Kamenogorsk in the East of Kazakhstan. Thenewplant with 400-ton annualcapacityisscheduledtostartoperatingin 2014.

The joint-venture IFASTAR established by two partners last year will carry out marketing of the products for Asian power operators.

After the ceremony of signing Anne Lauvergeon has noted: "This agreement demonstrates AREVA's strategy aimed at insuring reliability of supplies for the clients and strengthening of our position in the global fuel market.

Vladimir Shkolnik pointed out: "Kazatomprom is consistent with implementation of its program to build up a vertically integrated company with complete nuclear fuel cycle, and this agreement with AREVA is another important step in implementation of this strategy".