A consortium of French energy companies made a final bid on Wednesday night to sell at least two nuclear reactors to Abu Dhabi, the chief executive of state-owned EDF said on Thursday.

"We submitted the bid last night," Henri Proglio told reporters on the sidelines of a news conference at the Finance Ministry.

He did not say when he expected to hear from the government of Abu Dhabi on the outcome of the bid.

Power and gas group GDF Suez, oil major Total, and Areva, the world's biggest nuclear reactor maker, bid for the Abu Dhabi contract nearly two years ago, and were initially seen as frontrunners.

But the French consortium, which EDF joined earlier this year after a request by the United Arab Emirates to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, recently appeared to be losing ground to a rival bid by Korea Electric Power Corp.

A consortium comprising General Electric and Japan's Hitachi  is also bidding.

Proglio said on Wednesday that EDF would take the reins of the consortium and spearhead the effort to win the Abu Dhabi bid. – Reuters