1 Apr (NucNet): The new chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), operator of the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear station, has said his most important mission is to focus on Fukushima prefecture and its residents, including the payment of compensation to victims of the March 2011 accident.
Fumio Sudo, 72, an ex-president of steelmaker JFE Holdings, took up his position at Tepco today. He succeeds 66-year-old Kazuhiko Shimokobe, a lawyer who was brought in from the outside to serve as chairman in June 2012.
Mr Sudo, who has served as a Tepco board member since June 2012, said the cleanup and revitalisation of Fukushima prefecture is his “most important mission”.
He said he had been given instructions by prime minister Shinzo Abe to carry out the compensation plan for Fukushima losses, to decommission and decontaminate the site, and to provide “a stable electricity supply” for the area.
Mr Sudo reiterated his and the company’s commitment to a business plan agreed with the government and the financial community. Tepco said Mr Sudo played a lead role in developing the plan, which provides for victim compensation and other aspects of the Fukushima clean-up, while also laying out “a pathway to long-term financial independence” for the company.
He confirmed that a new a new in-house company had been established dedicated to the decontamination and decommissioning of Fukushima-Daiichi. The new body is called Fukushima D&D Engineering and reports directly to company president Naomi Hirose.
The new company’s management includes representatives from Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, Toshiba and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Mr Sudo said these companies are Tepco’s key partners. “So this will be a partnership between the government, Tepco and key contractors,” he said.
Tepco intends to “bolster” efforts to award compensation to those affected by the accident with total payouts expected to be in the region of 47 billion US dollars (USD) (34 billion euros). The total cost of the accident has been estimated by the Japanese government at USD 100 billion.
Tepco said that as part of the new business plan, it will improve the regime it has established for rebuilding the area around the nuclear station.
The utility, now under government control, will increase the number of personnel involved in the rehabilitation of Fukushima prefecture and create an internal decommissioning company to handle all decommissioning issues at the facility.
Decommissioning costs have been put at around USD 20 billion, the business plan reveals.
Tepco said it intends to create employment in Fukushima prefecture by building a coal-fired thermal power plant and a number of research and development facilities.
