The troubled French nuclear reactor builder Areva said on Wednesday that it sharply narrowed its losses last year, thanks to an ongoing restructuring programme. In the red for the sixth year in a row, Areva said it booked a bottom-line loss of 665 million euros ($700 million) in 2016, compared with a loss of 2.04 billion euros a year earlier. In 2015, Areva had been compelled to make substantial provisions for restructuring and for additional losses on its EPR pressurised water reactor project in Finland. "The group's environment remained very difficult in 2016, in particular with a sharp drop in uranium and enrichment prices and a slowdown in services," Areva said in a statement.

"It's far from satisfactory to be making a loss but the group is turning itself around," finance chief Stephane Lhopiteau told a telephone news conference.

In addition to slashing 6,000 jobs, asset sales and one billion euros in cost-cutting by 2018, Areva is planning two capital increases of five billion euros in total, of which its majority shareholder, the French state, will shoulder 4.5 billion euros.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2017