Orano Cycle
French company
Orano Cycle, formerly COGEMA (Compagnie générale des matières nucléaires) and Areva NC, is a French nuclear fuel company. It is the main subsidiary of Orano S.A. It is an industrial group active in all stages of the uranium fuel cycle, including uranium mining, conversion, enrichment, spent fuel reprocessing, and recycling.
The company was originally created in 1976. In 2001, it became part of Areva; its name was changed to Areva NC in March 2006. As a result of restructuring of Areva, Areva NC became part of Orano and changed its name to Orano Cycle.
History
In 1976, Compagnie générale des mines was created based on the uranium production activities of Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (CEA). Later it was renamed Compagnie Générale des Matières Nucléaire (COGEMA). As of 1999, COGEMA was majority owned by CEA (81.5%) with minority owned by Total S.A. (15%) and Technip (3.5%). It also owned stakes in Framatome and Eramet.
In June 2001, Cogema became a part of the Topco group which was renamed Areva in September 2001.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Orano Cycle” is french company. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Orano, Cycle and French, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “french company” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q262037. VIAF identifies the subject as 167416639. The Library of Congress control number is n99007779. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1976, 2001, 2006 and 1999.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Orano Cycle”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Orano Cycle primary sources, Orano Cycle archive and Orano research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Orano Cycle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.