EDF, the French energy giant building the new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point, plans to shrink its dividends for next year as it wrestles with the spiralling costs of maintaining its ageing nuclear fleet in France .

The company issued three profit warnings last year following a string of unplanned nuclear plant shutdowns ahead of its €55bn nuclear upgrade programme. In the clearest sign that the financial pressure facing the group will continue EDF said it will cut its dividend ratio by over 10 percentage points in 2018.

EDF plans to pay its shareholders a dividend ratio of 60pc of its income, or €2.1bn, for 2016 but this will fall to 50pc of recurring earnings by 2018 as the company tasked with building the giant Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Somerset faces looming multi-billion euro costs of upgrading its own aging fleet of nuclear reactors.

EDF’s shares slipped by over 2pc to €9.20 as the company revealed the full impact of the triple hit of nuclear outages, maintenance costs and sluggish market prices which weighed its operating profit down by over 15pc to €4.1bn, compared to €4.8bn in 2015.

EDF’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation fell 6.7pc to €16.4bn last year and is expected to fall further to between €13.7bn to €14.3bn in 2017.