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Siemens to sell its 34-percent stake to Areva S.A. * Says Areva to acquire Siemens' stake within three years * Says purchase price to be agreed upon by both parties (Adds details from Siemens statement and background) MUNICH, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Siemens AG (SIEGn.DE) will exit the nuclear venture Areva NP and plans to sell its 34-percent stake to majority holder Areva S.A. (CEPFi.PA), it said late on Monday, ahead of its annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday.

"European Union regulators said Wednesday that they are investigating nuclear power non-compete deals between France's Areva SA and Germany's Siemens AG after Areva took over their joint venture. This adds another twist to a row between the two companies after Siemens pulled out of the Areva NP unit, the world's largest builder of atomic power plants, and struck a deal with Russia's Rosatom to develop nuclear reactors. Areva complained last year that Siemens' new deal broke the terms of a 2001 non-competition clause."

Germany may be phasing out its nuclear power stations, but German group Siemens plans to cooperate with Russia's Rosatom to tap into the growing global market to build new nuclear plants. A deal could be signed in the coming months, reports business daily Handelsblatt. German industrial group Siemens is preparing to sign a nuclear cooperation deal with Russia to tap a growing global market for building nuclear power plants, German business daily Handelsblatt reported on Wednesday.

Areva said on Wednesday former partner Siemens would breach a non-competition clause if the German company went ahead with plans to tie up with the French nuclear reactor maker's Russian rival Rosatom. In January, Siemens announced plans to exit its nuclear venture with Areva, a move Areva said had come as a surprise. On Tuesday, Siemens and Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear company, announced a joint venture to develop Russian pressurized water reactor technology, the construction of new nuclear power plants and modernization of existing plants.

Areva and Electricité de France (EDF) are French-based companies at the heart of worldwide attempts to re-launch nuclear ordering - the so-called Nuclear Renaissance. Areva is an electricity industry equipment supplier offering transmission and distribution equipment as well as the full range of civil nuclear technologies. For its nuclear business, it operates as Areva NP, a joint venture with the German company Siemens in which Areva holds 66% and Siemens the balance, although in January 2009, Siemens announced it would be withdrawing from the joint venture (see below). EDF is an electric utility operating all the main generating technologies. The French state retains a majority holding in both companies although the priorities of their private shareholders, for EDF small shareholders and for Areva NP, Siemens, can no longer be ignored. In addition, the European Union law on unfair State Aids only allows governments to meet company losses or provide other assistance if such measures do not distort competition. For the markets Areva and EDF operate in, it would be hard to argue that any state aids did not distort competition.

Billions of euros are involved in the arbitration between TVO and the Areva-Siemens consortium. TVO considers itself entitled to €2.4 billion in damages, while the consortium wants €1 billion for compensation and late payments. The official mention of the figures by Siemens as part of its first-quarter results for 2009 confirms reports that big money would be involved in the dispute. Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) contracted the Areva-Siemens consortium to construct a 1600 MWe EPR reactor at Olkiluoto at the end of 2003. For €3 billion ($3.9 billion), the consortium was meant to complete the plant and hand it over to TVO this year. However, mid-2012 is now seen as the likely start-up date and neither party is happy. Areva has said that TVO is much too slow in processing documents and passing them on to the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, Stuk, while TVO denies this.

A nuclear power plant under construction by the Franco-German Areva-Siemens consortium in Finland will be further delayed to mid-2012, utility TVO said on Tuesday. "The Areva-Siemens Consortium, the turn-key supplier of the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant unit, has now confirmed TVO´s earlier estimation that the Olkiluoto 3 unit will not be completed until 2012," TVO said in a statement.

German consortium Areva-Siemens is to take TVO to arbitration in a dispute over delays and cost overruns at the Olkiluoto 3 reactor, the Finnish nuclear plant operator said on Wednesday. In October, TVO was told by the consortium that the 1,600 MW reactor -- the first to be constructed in Western Europe for more than a decade -- would be further delayed to 2012 from its initial start-up target of 2009.

Start-up of Europe's first EPR nuclear power plant, the Olkiluoto 3 under construction in Finland, has been postponed beyond June 2012 because civil construction is taking longer than was previously estimated, according plant owner Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO). Finland's nuclear regulatory agency has, meanwhile, called attention to "deficiencies" in the welding of the plant's cooling system, potentially causing further delays. The Finnish utility said last week that the plant's supplier, an AREVA-Siemens Energy consortium, is responsible for the current schedule, and that it has requested a re-analysis of the anticipated start-up date. Work on the long-awaited nuclear power project began in 2005, and the plant was originally due to come online in 2009, but the project has been consistently plagued with faulty materials and planning problems. AREVA in September revealed that the total cost of the flagship third-generation reactor had risen to some €5.3 billion-up from the originally estimated cost of €3 billion. Costs could go up even more because of timeline uncertainties.

Start-up of Europe's first EPR nuclear power plant, the Olkiluoto 3 under construction in Finland, has been postponed beyond June 2012 because civil construction is taking longer than was previously estimated, according plant owner Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO). Finland's nuclear regulatory agency has, meanwhile, called attention to "deficiencies" in the welding of the plant's cooling system, potentially causing further delays. The Finnish utility said last week that the plant's supplier, an AREVA-Siemens Energy consortium, is responsible for the current schedule, and that it has requested a re-analysis of the anticipated start-up date. Work on the long-awaited nuclear power project began in 2005, and the plant was originally due to come online in 2009, but the project has been consistently plagued with faulty materials and planning problems. AREVA in September revealed that the total cost of the flagship third-generation reactor had risen to some €5.3 billion-up from the originally estimated cost of €3 billion. Costs could go up even more because of timeline uncertainties.

Model for new UK reactors reveals damaging disagreements between Finland and French contractors From the outside, there is nothing unusual about the warehouse by the offices on Finland's Olkiluoto island, site of what should have been the world's first modern nuclear reactor. But inside, stacked on five kilometres of shelving, are 160,000 documents. "If a valve for the reactor is changed, it comes in a small box and a van full of documents," complains Jouni Silvennoinen, project director for Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), the Finnish utility that ordered the plant from the Franco-German consortium Areva-Siemens. The paper mountain helps explain why the reactor, which should have cost €3bn (£2.72bn) and been working this year, will now miss its revised completion date of mid-2012 and will cost at least €5.3bn. In the latest delay, Finland's nuclear safety regulator halted welding on the reactor last week and criticised poor oversight by the sub-contractor, supplier and TVO.

Model for new UK reactors reveals damaging disagreements between Finland and French contractors From the outside, there is nothing unusual about the warehouse by the offices on Finland's Olkiluoto island, site of what should have been the world's first modern nuclear reactor. But inside, stacked on five kilometres of shelving, are 160,000 documents. "If a valve for the reactor is changed, it comes in a small box and a van full of documents," complains Jouni Silvennoinen, project director for Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), the Finnish utility that ordered the plant from the Franco-German consortium Areva-Siemens. The paper mountain helps explain why the reactor, which should have cost €3bn (£2.72bn) and been working this year, will now miss its revised completion date of mid-2012 and will cost at least €5.3bn. In the latest delay, Finland's nuclear safety regulator halted welding on the reactor last week and criticised poor oversight by the sub-contractor, supplier and TVO.

This is the radioactivity-free kind of meltdown, as Helsingin Sanomat reported: The Finnish nuclear power company Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) is seeking damages of EUR 2,400 million from the consortium of Areva and Siemens for delays in the construction of Finland's fifth nuclear reactor in Olkiluoto. Makes one look forward to what might happen if a truly litigous country had a major nuclear Renaissance fueled by, say, taxpayer money (see The nuclear bomb in the Senate stimulus plan). The Finnish newspaper has

Areva SA, the biggest builder of nuclear reactors, received three offers of less than 4 billion euros ($5.9 billion) for its transmission and distribution unit, according to three people familiar with the sale. General Electric Co. teamed up with CVC Capital Partners Ltd. to make an offer, while Toshiba Corp. submitted a separate bid, said the people, who declined to be identified because the talks are private. France's Alstom SA and Schneider Electric also submitted a joint offer, the people said. The bids fell short of the 4.25 billion euros analysts had estimated the unit to be worth. Areva is selling the business to raise money to develop uranium mines and buy Siemens AG's share of a nuclear-reactor joint venture. The company bought the division from Alstom for 920 million euros in 2004. The French state, Areva's biggest shareholder, may favor a domestic buyer, analysts surveyed ahead of the bidding deadline last week said.

France's government control nuclear company Areva is busted. To cover a $4 billion budget gap, the company will be selling a 15% stake in the company to Asian and Mid-Eastern companies. That puts 25% of the company in foreign hands, and it still doesn't provide enough money to cover its coming budget problems: FT: But Areva's investment needs to 2012 are estimated at between €8bn and €10bn, excluding the €2bn cost of buying Germany's Siemens out of the engineering joint venture Areva NP. The group faces rising reactor orders and an urgent need to modernise its ageing French facilities.

Poor planning has led to rising costs and huge delays for a nuclear reactor going up in Finland, the country's biggest-ever construction project, officials have said. The plant on the island of Olkiluoto in western Finland, to be run by Finnish nuclear power company TVO, was meant to start production this summer. But it is now not expected to open for another three years and Finnish authorities cannot hide their disappointment with Areva-Siemens, the Franco-German contractor running the building operations.

A nuclear reactor being built in Finland to the same design expected to be used in Britain is running three years behind schedule. Its developers, Areva, the French nuclear energy group, and Siemens, of Germany, had hoped it would start generating electricity yesterday. The reactor, in Olkiluoto, western Finland, is set to be the world's most powerful nuclear reactor, with a generating capacity of 1,600 megawatts - enough to power a city of 1.6 million people, or nearly one third of Finland's 5.5 million population. However, it is running three years late and is vastly over budget, beset by design delays, water-logged concrete and faulty pipes. EDF, the French state-owned energy group, has said that it will build at least four of the so-called EPR reactors - a new design - in the UK. The first, expected to be at Hinkley Point in Somerset, is slated to enter service in 2017 to help to plug a looming gap in Britain's energy supplies.

Nobody has to convince Edna Brackey how important the mobile Early Cancer Detection Program discontinued at the end of 2006 really was. "I really owe eight years of a very enjoyable life to this program," said Brackey, who will turn 90 next summer, during a ceremony Thursday announcing the resumption of the testing program for current and former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant workers Brackey, like many who develop lung cancer, had no visible early symptoms of the disease, although she did have a prior problem with a cancer in her mouth. Due to the testing program that was in place in Piketon in 2001, however, a very small cancerous mass in her lung was detected with the free CT scan.

Nobody has to convince Edna Brackey how important the mobile Early Cancer Detection Program discontinued at the end of 2006 really was. "I really owe eight years of a very enjoyable life to this program," said Brackey, who will turn 90 next summer, during a ceremony Thursday announcing the resumption of the testing program for current and former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant workers Brackey, like many who develop lung cancer, had no visible early symptoms of the disease, although she did have a prior problem with a cancer in her mouth. Due to the testing program that was in place in Piketon in 2001, however, a very small cancerous mass in her lung was detected with the free CT scan.