French nuclear giant Areva loses $130M in 2012

PARIS (AP) — France's state-controlled nuclear engineering company, Areva, says it lost €99 million ($130 million) last year but that it is making strides in turning around a business struggling to move past the Japan's Fukushima disaster and a trouble mining venture.

The company lost €2.5 billion in 2011, a year that saw many countries rethink their use of nuclear energy after an earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima power plant. Much of those losses were due to a troubled uranium mining venture that was the subject of investigation.

But CEO Luc Oursel said Thursday that the company's turnaround plan was beginning to bear fruit. The company reported last month that sales have started to pick up. Revenue rose 5.3 percent in 2012 to €9.3 billion.