EDF announced on Friday an “action plan” with a bailout from the State to strengthen its finances as the year 2022 promises to be difficult with problems in nuclear production and government measures to limit rising bills of electricity.
The group, nearly 84% owned by the state, saw its net profit multiplied by 8 last year to 5.1 billion euros, benefiting in particular from good nuclear production in France. But “we have been encountering difficulties since the start of 2022”, which will require “an action plan”, CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy told journalists.
EDF will indeed suffer this year from nuclear production at half mast, with in particular corrosion problems on several reactors, and government measures to limit the rise in electricity bills.
The State will contribute up to 2.1 billion
EDF has therefore unveiled a capital increase project of approximately 2.5 billion euros. The State will participate to the tune of 2.1 billion, announced Friday morning the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, on RTL. And to specify that the participation of France is done for two reasons. “First, EDF is going through a bad financial patch, due to electricity production in 2022 which will be at its lowest compared to the beginning of the 1990s, around 295 and 320 TWh. By way of comparison, EDF produced 360 TWh in 2021, and 400 TWh in 2014. We can see that this drop in electricity production is very significant,” he explained. According to Bruno Le Maire, “this drop in production represents at least 11 billion less for EDF. »
But the effort that EDF must make in the face of the government’s decision to limit the rise in electricity bills is not the main reason for this state investment, said the minister. “Regarding the decisions we have taken on increasing the share of nuclear electricity that EDF has an obligation to resell to its competitors, to protect consumers and businesses from soaring prices, we consider that they are in our view an incidental element in these financial difficulties of EDF in relation to the drop in production in 2022. It is obvious that EDF was not going to impose a 40% increase in tariffs, neither on households nor on businesses”, he judged.
“The second reason was the need for fresh money in the face of the considerable investments required for the construction of new production tools in the nuclear and renewable sectors”, according to the minister. With a net debt of 43 billion euros at the end of last year, the group must indeed face significant investments.
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