9 May (NucNet): Japan’s government today approved a restructuring plan for Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) that puts the operator of the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant under temporary state control and aims to restore profitability within two years.
Under the plan, approved by trade and industry minister Yukio Edano, the Japanese government will take a controlling stake in the company in return for a $12 billion dollar (9 billion euro) taxpayer bailout.
Tepco faces huge clean-up and compensation costs from the March 2011 accident at Fukushima-Daiichi.
Tepco said last week it had submitted a recovery plan to the government that proposed putting the company under government control, cutting costs by nearly $41 billion over the next decade and restarting units at another one of its nuclear plants, Kashiwazaki Kariwa, in 2013.
The state will inject about $12 billion for a controlling stake in the company. Banks will lend a further $12 billion, and costs will be cut and electricity rates increased, Tepco said.
The recovery plan, which has been under discussion since January, aims to ensure Tepco can pay compensation for victims of the Fukushima-Daiichi accident and of decommissioning its reactors and fuel ponds.
In return for injecting $12 billion, the government will take an initial stake of 50.1 percent in Tepco along with rights to a further one-sixth of the company’s shares that it can exercise later if it deems necessary.
The Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (JAIF) said Tepco hopes to return to the black by March 2015.
