Areva and Gamesa Creating Offshore Joint Venture

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Areva S.A. (ENX:CEI) (Paris, France) and Gamesa Corporation S.A. (MCE:GAM) (Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain) have set out plans to capture 20% of Europe's fast-growing offshore wind sector by signing a deal to create a 50-50 joint venture company.

The new company will combine both groups' offshore businesses with Gamesa contributing assets worth approximately 195 million euros ($265 million) and Areva's assets at 280 million euros ($381 million). The deal, subject to approval by the French government and European competition authorities, will be finalized by the fourth quarter this year and will have its headquarters in Zamudio, Vizcaya, Spain.

Gamesa will contribute its 5-megawatt (MW) offshore platform, any of its onshore technology that can be transferred to offshore development and its operations and maintenance business which is overseeing 20-gigawatts of onshore capacity. Areva will contribute 5 MW and forthcoming 8 MW offshore turbines and a 2.8 GW pipeline of projects--which it claimed is the offshore market's second largest. It will also bring offshore R&D and engineering knowledge and its dedicated offshore manufacturing and logistics capabilities, specifically its German-based manufacturing operations at Bremerhaven (turbine assembly) and Stade (blades).

"The new company will be ideally positioned to become a leading player in the offshore wind segment," the partners stated. "The JV expects to garner an expanding market share in Europe by 2020, underpinned by its pipeline, with projects in Germany, France and U.K.. Europe is the main offshore market, where installed capacity is expected to exceed 25 GW in 2020. From the outset, the joint venture will boast numerous committed customers amongst which Iberdrola and the GDF Suez-EDPR-Neoen Marine consortium. The joint venture is also well positioned, thanks to both partners' extensive track records to take advantage of the high-potential of the Asian market, where forecasts indicate an installed capacity of 18 GW within the same time horizon."

They added: "The joint venture will benefit from the recently won 1 GW [gigawatt] pipeline deal in France's offshore round 2, where the 8 MW turbine is set to be installed by 2021".

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