TechnicAtome

Three years after turning to a new page of its history in the service of national nuclear deterrence, 2019 was, for TechnicAtome, a key player in naval propulsion and a specialist in compact nuclear reactors, at the crossroads between the civil and the military nuclear sectors, a year full of important events, marked by very good results.

The latter part of 2018 saw the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle return to sea after its mid-life servicing, and the commissioning of the Cadarache onshore test reactor (RES) by TechnicAtome staff. 2019 was a landmark year for the French submarine service. The launch ceremony for the Suffren nuclear attack submarine, the first in the Barracuda programme, took place in July. The nuclear fuel was loaded in September, and the first reactor criticality was conducted by our staff on 17 December in keeping with the planned schedule. This is the second reactor, along with the RES, to be started up in 14 months, a decade after the last submarine, the Terrible, was launched at Cherbourg. 

Activity remained high for TechnicAtome in 2019, with revenues at a historically high level and a large number of new staff hired in all our engineering, operations, production and support sectors.

2020 is a year of high stakes. Strategic decisions are expected on the future new generation aircraft carrier and on the 3rd generation nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine programme, which will help to structure TechnicAtome's future. The financial structure of the Nuward modular civil reactor programme, which entered the preliminary design phase in 2019, will be finalized in 2020.

Building on our unique expertise in nuclear propulsion, our operating results and our ongoing projects, we are keeping the momentum going in 2020 with energy and passion, serving our customers and ready for future programmes.