By Benjamin Mallet
PARIS, Feb 17 (Reuters) – EDF boss Luc Remont vowed on Friday to turn around the situation at the French utility, which in 2022 posted record net losses of 17.9 billion euros ($19 billion), weighed down by by an unprecedented number of failures in its reactors.
Production from the company’s nuclear plants fell to its lowest level in 34 years, forcing EDF to buy electricity on the market to supply its customers, just as the Russian invasion of Ukraine caused prices to rise sharply. of electricity throughout Europe.
EDF’s profits were also hit by government measures to limit the rise in French households’ electricity bills and shield them from rising inflation.
The group, which is in the process of full nationalization, posted a negative annual operating result or EBITDA of 5,000 million euros and its net debt rose to 64,500 million euros, compared to 43,000 million a year earlier.
“Today, our priority is to get EDF back on track,” Luc Remont, CEO of EDF, appointed by the government in November to redirect the group, told the press.
Its goal is for French nuclear production to be between 300 and 330 terawatt hours (TWh) by 2023, up from 279 TWh last year, which was the lowest since 1988 and made France a net importer of electricity for the first time. Since 1980.
(Additional reporting by America Hernandez; writing by Silvia Aloisi; editing in Spanish by Tomás Cobos)
