France's nuclear power group Areva and other companies including China's CGNPC will bid for the British joint venture dropped by Germany in March, Areva boss Luc Oursel said Saturday.

"The idea is to form a team to take this over," he told journalists at a business gathering in southern France.

It would include Areva "and a number of Chinese electrical companies," he added, citing CGNPC in particular.

Asked about the participation of CGNPC (China Guangdong Nuclear Power Company), Oursel said it was "a key partner for France," referring to their partnership in building advanced EPR reactors in Taishan in southern China.

Germany's E.ON and RWE in March abandoned plans to develop nuclear reactors at Wylfa in north Wales and at Oldbury-on-Severn in southwest England under the so-called Horizon Nuclear Power project.

The two companies said in a statement they would seek a new owner for the �15-billion (18-billion-euro, $22-billion) project, blaming their decision on the global economic crisis and Germany's accelerated nuclear phase-out.

Days later a spokesman for Russia's Rosatom said the state nuclear firm was a contender.

"Rosatom is ready to provide every assurance that the nuclear power plants it builds in Britain will meet all the safety and standard requirements of the IAEA" nuclear watchdog, a spokesman told the state RIA Novosti news agency.

The official added that Rosatom was now building generation "3+" nuclear power plants in countries such as India, and viewed Britain as an important market because of its nuclear power development drive.