PARIS, Dec 16 — Shares in EDF fell more than 7 per cent at the open today after the French power giant found faults at a nuclear power station and shut down another plant using the same kind of reactors, leading it to cut its core profit goal for this year.

France’s biggest electricity supplier said late yesterday some faults were detected close to the welds on the pipes of the safety injection-system circuit in the two reactors of the Civaux power plant in western France.

A source close to the matter told Reuters the flaws were linked to corrosion.

As a result of the discovery, an outage at the Civaux plant will last longer than expected, the company said.

EDF said it would stop its plant in Chooz in eastern France because it uses the same kind of reactors.

The decision will result in a loss of about 1 Terawatt-hour by the end of 2021, EDF said, adding that this would lead to a downward revision of its EBITDA estimate to a range of €17.5 to €18 billion (RM83 to RM85 billion), against the previous target of more than €17.7 billion, based on current market prices.

Jefferies analysts wrote in a note the update was "clearly a near-term negative,” with the new core profit guidance 3.5 per cent below consensus. — Reuters