Following the latest government announcements to try to reduce the electricity bill of the French, EDF will have to sell its production at a reduced price. The shutdown of reactors is also worrying.
EDF shares fell more than 20% on Friday morning on the Paris Stock Exchange, after the French electricity group lowered its forecasts for electricity production and financial results for the year, in connection with announcements government to limit the rise in electricity prices.
At 9:45 a.m., the title tumbled 21.82% to 8.09 euros, after a mechanical suspension in the first exchanges due to excessive movements.
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In order to limit the rise in electricity prices for consumers, the French government on Thursday asked EDF to increase by 20% the volume of nuclear electricity sold at a reduced price to its competitors this year, from 100 to 120 terawatt hours. (TWh). This means that the group will be forced to sell at a reduced price up to -40% of its electricity production in 2022, instead of selling at high market prices. This decision will cost him billions of euros.
In financial terms, the group announced on Thursday evening that “in the current state of informationavailable to it, the impact of this measure on its gross operating surplus for 2022 would be “approximately €8.4 billion based on market prices as of December 31, 2021 and approximately €7.7 billion based on market prices as of January 12, 2022“. Numbers “that can scare investors“, Estimate the analysts of Alphavalue in a note Friday.
Production revised “down”
Corn “the real bad news» concerns the «production downgradenuclear for 2022 at 300/330 TWh, against 330/360 TWh previously, due to the extension of the shutdown period of five reactors in EDF’s French nuclear fleet, they specify.
Today, 10 of the 56 reactors are shut down for maintenance or other, which represents 20% of French nuclear production capacity. Other plant closures, in the middle of winter when electricity consumption is high, could disrupt the country’s electricity supply, or even create power cuts in the worst case.
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Thursday, the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) told AFP that a nuclear reactor at the Penly power plant (Seine-Maritime) was also affected by a corrosion problem on a security system already detected. or suspected on four other EDF reactors currently shut down.
A news all the moremore alarming that Penly is designed differently than (the reactors of) Civeaux and Chooz and that the corrosion problems do not seem to be attributable only to a certain type of reactor”, according to the note of Alphavalue. This advert “paves the way for potential additional interruptions in the coming weeks and months (…) and the impact on the financial results is difficult to estimate at present since it will depend on the duration of the interruptions and their number“, is it added.
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