French nuclear power giant EDF said first-quarter like-for-like sales rose by 34.6% to 47.8 billion euros ($52.64 billion) thanks to higher electricity and gas prices, though it reported a fall in nuclear output due to reactor outages and strikes in France.

EDF said nuclear production in its home country had declined to 85.2 terawatt-hours (TWh), or 6.5 TWh less than in the first quarter of 2022.

"This decrease is explained by a lower nuclear fleet availability, mainly due to outages for the controls and repairs on the pipes affected by the stress corrosion phenomenon, and to the impacts of social movements," EDF said in a statement.

The group, which is in the process of being fully nationalised, confirmed its estimate of nuclear output in France for 2023 in a range of 300-330TWh.

Nuclear production fell to a 34-year low last year due to a record number of reactor outages at EDF, turning France into a net importer of electricity for the first time since 1980.

The group said nuclear production totalled 9 TWh in Britain in the first three months of the year, down by 2.4 TWh from a year earlier, after the closing of Hinkley Point B nuclear power station in August 2022 and because of a busier maintenance programme in 2023.

 

 

($1 = 0.9081 euros) (Reporting by Benjamin Mallet, editing by Silvia Aloisi)