Areva's problems are not over; Le Creusot inspection went poorly

Production of components for nuclear power plants at Le Creusot, where document falsification occurred, has once again come under scrutiny following the publication of a report by the UK regulator. The site, where components for, among others, the new units of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant will be manufactured, allegedly again used prohibited means to make subsequent changes to documentation. 

The problems at the Le Creusot factory first came to light in the first half of 2015, when a higher concentration of carbon was discovered in the reactor vessel of the new unit at the Flamanville nuclear power plant. It now appears that the problems have still not been fully resolved.

Since the discovery of falsified documentation, French power plants in particular have undergone detailed inspections, as has the production of components at Le Creusot itself, where the falsified documentation was discovered.

The issue has now again attracted attention after the UK authority warned in an inspection report that EDF had failed to maintain oversight of production at the factory. Production at Le Creusot is crucial for the UK particularly because some components for the new units at the Hinkley Point nuclear power plant will also come from this factory.

The report, which was obtained by Reuters, contains the findings of an inspection conducted on 16 December last year, and according to the authorities, production conditions fell short of expectations. As a result, additional inspections were ordered to dispel doubts over possible defects in new nuclear units in the UK.

While the report acknowledges that it is still too early to assess the effectiveness of some corrective measures, some findings are fairly serious. In particular, despite a ban on the use of correction fluid to falsify documentation, evidence was found that it continued to be used.

„It is remarkable that, after all the reports of document falsification, employees at Le Creusot continued to use Tipp-Ex.“
Paul Dorfmann, University College London 

Following the discovery of the document falsification scandal, extensive inspections took place around the world. The newly built unit at Finland's Olkiluoto and US nuclear power plants also underwent additional inspections.