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Government welcomes completion of British Energy sale |
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Tuesday, 06 January 2009 |
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The Government has welcomed the completion today of EDF's £12.5 billion purchase of British Energy Group plc. The purchase is a significant step in EDF's plans to build four new nuclear reactors in the UK.
Completion today, following regulatory clearance with conditions by European competition authorities in December, marks the culmination of the restructuring of British Energy. In 2002 the Government stepped in to support a restructuring of the company in order to ensure the safety of nuclear power and security of electricity supplies. Since then, the challenge to tackle climate change has made the growth of new nuclear power more pressing and this transaction enables the UK to move further towards its ambition to become a low carbon economy.
Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said:
"Given the challenge of climate change and energy security, it is right to embrace nuclear power as one of the technologies that can serve us in the future. Today's announcement marks an important step on the path to new nuclear power becoming a reality, just a year after we published the Nuclear Energy White Paper.
"In addition to the important investment made by EDF, our ambition is to have more than one firm building and operating nuclear power stations in the UK. There are strong signals of interest in this from the power industry and we will continue to work with stakeholders to bring about the conditions that can make that possible."
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said:
"Completion of this takeover represents not only a £12.5 billion investment in the UK by EDF but, in opening the way for new nuclear build, should provide many billions of pounds more opportunity for the UK supply chain."
The sale, which includes the 36 per cent stake in the company held by the Government's Nuclear Liabilities Fund, raises approximately £4.4 billion towards the cost of decommissioning British Energy's existing nuclear power stations. EDF's takeover offer was announced on September 24.
For more information visit the British Energy website.
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