In the fall of 2021, the situation was difficult for metal producers, hit by the rise in electricity prices. It became critical in December, marked by a surge in prices which forced the government to intervene urgently in order to avoid the shutdown of certain sites, or even bankruptcies.
The Minister Delegate, in charge of industry, Agnès Pannier-Runacher traveled to Dunkirk (North), Friday January 21, on the site of the industrialist Aluminum Dunkirk to ensure the after-sales service of the measures taken by the State. And justify the contribution of EDF, forced to finance part of the device intended to curb the surge in electricity prices.
“The main shareholder of EDF is the State [à 83,9 %], underlined the Minister. So it is the regulatory state that takes its responsibilities and defends the French people, their jobs and their purchasing power. » As for EDF, “He will be at [ses] sides to ensure that he can strengthen his situation”. There is no question, according to her, of ” weaken ” a company that “ensure our economic sovereignty, our independence and our competitiveness”. Without naming him, she was responding to its CEO, Jean-Bernard Lévy, who wrote to the group’s two hundred senior executives to denounce a measure that further weakened the company’s balance sheet.
Aluminum Dunkerque was chosen on purpose: it illustrates the binomial “industry-nuclear” specific to France. With an annual production of nearly 350,000 tonnes, it is the largest refinery in Europe, close to the Gravelines power station, which is supposed to supply it with competitive current. Aluminum is particularly affected by rising electricity costs, since it takes 13.7 megawatt hours to produce one tonne. Without state intervention, which will reduce these additional costs without completely erasing them, the plant would have lost 300 million euros, “which meant the closure of this site employing 570 employees”, we are assured at the Ministry of Industry.
vital sector
The survival of other companies is also at stake. The advance for carbon offsetting of the most CO-emitting sites2 included in the draft budget for 2022 (150 million euros) and, above all, the increase to 120 terawatt hours (compared to 100 TWh) in the volume of electricity of nuclear origin produced by EDF and resold to its competitors from four to five times cheaper than on the wholesale market avoided the closure of 150 companies (aluminum, ferroalloys, PVC plastics, etc.), indicated Mme Pannier-Runacher. They will make it possible to preserve 45,000 jobs, not to mention the positions saved, according to her, with the customers of the metallurgists, in particular the automotive and aeronautical sectors, which will continue to be supplied.
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