20 Aug (NucNet): Electricity cooperative Oglethorpe Power is reviewing whether it will support continuing with the Vogtle nuclear station expansion project in the US state of Georgia following an increase in costs, chief executive officer Mike Smith said.
The company's board of directors will vote on whether to support project completion before the end of September, although no specific date for the decision has been set, Mr Smith said in a statement.
Media reports also quoted Mr Smith as saying the company thinks costs may climb further.
All three main partners in the $22bn Vogtle expansion project must agree this autumn to complete the project or it will be halted, officials said last week when they announced a revised cost estimate.
Georgia Power said on 9 August 2018 that its subsidiary Southern Nuclear has made significant progress on construction of the Vogtle-3 and -4 since assuming project management on behalf of the co-owners, but the capital and construction cost forecast for its share of the project has increased from $7.3bn to $8.4bn.
The co-owners of the project to build two Westinghouse AP1000 reactor units are Georgia Power, Oglethorpe Power, MEAG Power and Dalton Utilities. Southern Nuclear, which operates nuclear plants for Georgia Power, took over project management from Westinghouse following its bankruptcy in 2017.
Southern Company, the parent company of both Georgia Power and Southern Nuclear, will absorb the $1.1bn in additional costs, which are the result of incentives to attract and retain staff, and increased field supervision and engineering oversight, Georgia Power said.
Costs have also increased from original estimates of $14bn as the project faced first-of-a-kind design, procurement and construction problems over the past decade. The delays and cost overruns triggered the bankruptcy and reorganisation of main contractor and reactor vendor Westinghouse, which had guaranteed a fixed-price contract for Vogtle and a similar effort to add two AP1000s at South Carolina Electric & Gas’s Summer station.
Before it emerged from bankruptcy this year with new ownership, Westinghouse was owned by Toshiba.
The company leading the Summer project, Scana of South Carolina, abandoned the development last year and later announced it had accepted a $14.6bn takeover bid from Dominion Energy.
Oglethorpe said estimated completion dates of the new Vogtle units remain November 2021 for Unit 3,and November 2022 for Unit 4.
The new nuclear units are the first to be built in the US in a generation and the only new units currently under construction in the country.
