Tepco to get $11bn government aid after plan approval

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) is to receive 900bn yen ($11.5bn; £7bn) in bailout funds after the government approved its business plan.

The funds are part of the government's bailout plan for Tepco, which has just reported a six month loss of 627bn yen.

The earthquake and tsunami in March damaged its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, resulting in radiation leaks.

It may have to pay $100bn (£62bn) in compensation claims relating to those leaks.

About 80,000 people living with 20km (12 miles) of the Fukushima plant were forced to abandon their homes after the radiation leaks and many businesses were forced to shut down.

Tepco reported a net loss of 627bn yen for the six months from April to September, due to the costs of dealing with the crisis at Fukushima.

That figure compares with a net profit of 92.3bn yen in the same period last year.

'Thorough restructuring'

The losses, coupled with the huge compensation claims it faces, had raised concerns about the long-term prospects of the company, prompting the government to step in to bail out the company.

The government set up a special fund to help Tepco compensate the victims and maintain its operations.

However, the government had asked the company to submit a business plan indicating how it intended to turn around its fortunes, in order to receive the funding.

"I urge Tepco and the bailout fund to implement sincere compensation and thorough restructuring, taking into account that they are borrowing a massive amount of money from Japanese citizens," Japan's trade minister Yukio Edano said.

The company submitted its proposal last week, saying it would help it cut almost 2.5tn yen in costs over the next 10 years.

-BBC

Panel sees nuke disaster compensation at $39-$52 billion: Nikkei

(Reuters) - Compensation for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster will cost at least 3-4 trillion yen ($39-$52 billion), reckons a government-appointed panel looking into Tokyo Electric Power Co's finances, the Nikkei business daily reported.
Tepco, as the utility is known, will run out of cash unless it restarts idle reactors at its workhorse Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture or charges more for electricity, the paper said citing projections that will be included in the panel's upcoming report.
The compensation estimates assume that the damaged Fukushima reactors are brought to the safe state known as cold shutdown early next year and that residents evacuated from the surrounding areas return home next fiscal year, the report said.
Delays in reaching these goals would run up the bill, which will also depend on how much of the decontamination costs Tepco is made to bear, the report added.
The panel examined nine financial scenarios for the coming decade, based on when the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa reactors might go back online (next summer, a year after that, or not at all) and how much electric rates might rise (5%, 10%, or not at all), Nikkei said.
The scenarios involving either no restart or no rate hike lead to either a cash crunch or negative net worth, the paper said.
In its report, which is due out as early as next month, the panel will include three or four of the viable scenarios and put a figure of 500-600 billion yen on the compensation money to be realized through a companywide overhaul, Nikkei added.

-Reuters