Areva's Indian nuclear project to be built soon

Areva is close to building a nuclear power station on the west coast of India.

The project is for two European pressurised reactors at Jaitapur 400 kilometres south of Mumbai.

The talks between India and Areva had reached a "very advanced stage", said Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid.

"We have to settle the questions of safety raised by the tsunami in Japan and this has an effect on the unit price of energy produced," he said.

This was being studied by experts but "a final agreement is within reach," he added.

Areva said merely that it was in advanced talks without indicating when an agreement might be signed, after a two-year delay.

In December 2010, Areva an agreement with India to build the country's first two reactors of the new-generation EPR type at Jaitapur with an option for four more reactors.

But following the disaster in Japan, many projects around the world were frozen, delayed or abandoned. The negotiations with India slowed down.

Indian authorities were waiting for the results of various additional audits on safety issues in relation to the EPR reactors, in the light of the disaster at Fukushima.

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