Manufacturing quality at Creusot Forge: ASN publishes the record of its correspondence with EDF and Areva NP on this subject since 2005

As part of its contribution to the work of the oversight group set up by the High Committee for Transparency and Information on Nuclear Security (HCTISN) – at the request of the Minister responsible for nuclear safety and energy - in order to guarantee the transparency of the investigation into the anomaly affecting the Flamanville EPR vessel and ensure the satisfactory transmission of information to civil society, ASN has collated a record of its correspondence with EDF and Areva NP since 2005 on the subject of manufacturing quality at Creusot Forge.

Further to a number of requests from the public, ASN is publishing the record of this correspondence with EDF and Areva NP since 2005 and is making the letters it sent them on this subject available to the public.

A report on the EPR vessel anomaly will also be produced by the HCTISN oversight group and will be made public.

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On 7^th April 2015, ASN made public the discovery of an anomaly in the composition of the steel in certain zones of the vessel closure head and the vessel bottom head of the Flamanville EPR reactor. The detection of this anomaly led ASN to ask Areva NP and EDF to learn all possible lessons from this event.

Three processes are currently under way:

• on other components of the EDF reactors, the search for technical anomalies similar to that detected on the Flamanville EPR vessel. This search enabled EDF to identify similar anomalies on the channel heads of certain steam generators;
• manufacturing quality reviews on parts in the Areva NP manufacturing plants, which enabled Areva NP to detect irregularities in the manufacturing files from Creusot Forge;
• initiation of a review of BNI licensee monitoring of their contractors and subcontractors, of ASN oversight and of the alert mechanisms.

The record published today describes 49 inspections carried out by ASN on the Le Creusot site since 2005, and gives details of the topics and dates of these inspections. This correspondence time-line also gives details of certain letters sent to EDF and Areva, along with reports of visits and minutes of meetings which concerned the Le Creusot site.