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Toshiba warns it may not continue as ‘going concern‘

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December 18, 2019
Toshiba Corp. projected a $9.2 billion loss for its fiscal year and warned it may not be able to continue as a “going concern.”
The Japanese electronics giant released unaudited results Tuesday, reporting steep losses related to the bankruptcy filing of its U.S. nuclear unit Westinghouse Electric Co. last month. For the first nine months of the year, which ends in March, it lost $4.8 billion.
The maker of computer chips and household appliances said expenses related to nuclear power construction by Westinghouse will “significantly” impact its liquidity.
“There are material events and conditions that raise the substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern,” the company said in its twice-delayed financial report.
Toshiba released the unaudited results, an unusual move, because it said its auditor couldn‘t reach a conclusion due to uncertainties related to the acquisition of U.S. nuclear construction company CB&I Stone and Webster.
One of Japan‘s most renowned electronics manufacturers, Toshiba has been roiled by soaring costs that followed the March 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, which also hurt its public sentiment toward nuclear energy. It still must decommission the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which suffered repeat meltdowns after the 2011 tsunami in northeastern Japan.

December 24, 2019 Posted by | Japan | , | Leave a comment

Japan utilities, Toshiba, Hitachi eye nuclear business alliance

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This file photo taken in November 2018 shows preparation under way for dismantling an exhaust pipe used by the disaster-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant’s No. 1 and No. 2 reactors
August 29, 2019
TOKYO (Kyodo) — Two Japanese utilities and Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. said Wednesday they have agreed to discuss potential collaboration in the nuclear business, as the industry faces a difficult environment following the Fukushima accident.
Amid lingering safety fears over nuclear plants, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., operator of the crippled Fukushima complex, Chubu Electric Power Co. and the two major nuclear reactor builders said they consider jointly developing human resources, technologies and supply chains.
Since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, stricter safety requirements have been implemented and only nine reactors at five complexes in Japan have restarted operations. At the time of the disaster, Japan had 54 nuclear reactors for commercial use.
The four companies said the envisaged partnership is aimed at effectively operating and developing nuclear technologies, and that they plan to promote cooperation especially in the boiling water reactor business.
However, demand for nuclear energy in Japan is unlikely to recover to the pre-Fukushima disaster level.
Facing huge compensation payments and other costs stemming from the Fukushima disaster, Tokyo Electric Power Company is eager to resume operating two reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture but has found difficulty in obtaining necessary approval from host municipalities.
Chubu Electric is also struggling with rising costs to maintain the Hamaoka nuclear plant in Shizuoka Prefecture, which remains offline.
Hit by ballooning costs, Hitachi has suspended a 3 trillion yen ($28 billion) nuclear plant project in Britain, while Toshiba decided in 2017 to exit the nuclear business outside Japan after incurring huge losses in the United States.

September 1, 2019 Posted by | fukushima 2019 | , , | Leave a comment

AECOM signs agreement with Toshiba to perform nuclear decommissioning services in Japan

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The signing of the collaboration agreement. From left to right: Dan Brouillette, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy; Mark Whitney, Executive Vice President and General Manager for AECOM’s Nuclear & Environment strategic business unit; Goro Yanase, Chief Nuclear Officer, Toshiba ESS; and Taizo Takahashi, Commissioner, Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE).
June 17, 2019
LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–
The partnership will expand access to the key Asian market that is valued at $50 billion and further underscores AECOM’s leading nuclear decontamination and decommissioning capabilities
AECOM (ACM), a premier, fully integrated global infrastructure firm, and Toshiba have signed an Alliance Agreement to work together on decommissioning nuclear reactors in Japan. This is a major step forward that combines AECOM’s 30 years of experience in nuclear decommissioning with Toshiba’s long history of supporting the nuclear industry. The alliance will offer comprehensive services to Japanese government organizations and commercial power utilities that plan to decommission their reactors and nuclear facilities.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190617005844/en/
“We are proud to be in an Alliance with such a respected company and excited about marketing our collective capabilities to the Japanese government and utilities,” said Michael S. Burke, AECOM’s chairman and chief executive officer. “We believe this Alliance has the right experience, capabilities, skill mix and resources to meet the needs of this nuclear cleanup market. We have had tremendous success in nuclear decommissioning for the U.S. Department of Energy and the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, as well as commercial clients around the world, and we look forward to supporting the Japanese utilities through this Alliance.”
AECOM is the market leader in the U.S. and U.K. for managing high-hazard, complex nuclear decommissioning programs. This includes work for the U.S. Department of Energy at key sites, such as Hanford, Savannah River, Oak Ridge and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. AECOM also is a leader in the U.K. decommissioning market with major contracts at the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority facilities at Dounreay and the Low Level Waste Repository. Including the Company’s work for commercial nuclear utilities, such as at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in Southern California, AECOM is viewed as a world leader in this expanding clean-up market. Combining AECOM‘s expertise with the local knowledge and capabilities of Toshiba, the Company can expand the full range of required decommissioning services to Japan.
“We are excited to partner with Toshiba and further expand our expertise in the nuclear D&D market,” said John Vollmer, AECOM’s president of its Management Services group. “In addition to our ongoing work at key U.S. Department of Energy sites and our recent selection for the $400 million Dounreay decommissioning framework, our teams have demonstrated a high level of success as we continue to expand our share within this high-growth market.”
Within the nuclear decommissioning sector, AECOM provides program management; planning, design and engineering; systems engineering and technical assistance; construction and construction management; operations and maintenance; environmental remediation; waste management and decommissioning, dismantling and closure services to a broad range of clients.
About AECOM
AECOM (ACM) is built to deliver a better world. We design, build, finance and operate critical infrastructure assets for governments, businesses and organizations. As a fully integrated firm, we connect knowledge and experience across our global network of experts to help clients solve their most complex challenges. From high-performance buildings and infrastructure, to resilient communities and environments, to stable and secure nations, our work is transformative, differentiated and vital. A Fortune 500 firm, AECOM had revenue of approximately $20.2 billion during fiscal year 2018. See how we deliver what others can only imagine at aecom.com and @AECOM.

June 19, 2019 Posted by | Japan | , | Leave a comment

Japan’s plans to sell nuclear plants overseas derailed

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Jan 20, 2019
With the decision by Hitachi Ltd. to “freeze” its plan to build two nuclear power reactors in the United Kingdom, all of the overseas nuclear power plant projects pursued by Japanese firms — with the backing of the government seeking to promote export of nuclear power technology as a key pillar of its efforts to boost infrastructure sales in overseas markets — have now effectively been derailed. Hitachi cited its judgments on the “economic rationality” of the U.K. project as the reason for halting the plan — an allusion to the declining profitability of the nuclear power business due chiefly to the surging cost of safety investments in the wake of the 2011 meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holding’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has long taken the initiative to promote the overseas sale of Japanese nuclear power plants through top-level diplomacy. However, the nuclear power plant business cannot be a part of the nation’s growth strategy if its business feasibility is in doubt. The government and related industries need to face up to the situation surrounding the nuclear power business — which continues to face difficulties domestically as well — and reassess the way forward.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster, triggered by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, has radically changed the global nuclear power market landscape. The cost of nuclear power, which had been promoted as a relatively inexpensive and “clean” source of energy that does not emit carbon dioxide, spiked as additional safety investments inflated plant expenses.
The cost of Hitachi’s project to build the two reactors in Anglesey, Wales, which began in 2012, has ballooned from the initial estimate of ¥2 trillion to ¥3 trillion. Another project pursued by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. to build four reactors in Turkey has also been hampered by the swelling cost — which reportedly shot up from an initially estimated ¥2.1 trillion to ¥5 trillion. Toshiba Corp. has pulled out from the overseas nuclear power business after the huge losses incurred by its subsidiary Westinghouse Electric Co. in its nuclear power plant projects in the United States.
Even with a spike in plant construction costs, the nuclear power business would make economic sense if the expected earnings surpass the investments. But Hitachi reportedly decided to halt the U.K. project after it became clear that even with public support from the British government it could not possibly realize profits. The economic competitiveness of nuclear power has also been blunted by the sharp expansion of renewable energy such as solar and wind power after the Fukushima nuclear accident and its plummeting costs — although Japan lags far behind other major economies in this respect.
Behind the government’s drive to promote the sale of nuclear power plants overseas has been the domestic market’s bleak business prospects. While the government and the power industry have pushed for restarting the nation’s nuclear power plants idled in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, once they have cleared the tightened plant safety standards, only nine reactors at five plants have been put back online. The additional costs of safety investments required under the new Nuclear Regulation Authority standards to make the plants more resilient to natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunami — estimated to range from ¥100 billion to ¥200 billion for each reactor — have prompted power companies to decide to decommission 23 aging reactors so far (including the six at Tepco’s Fukushima No. 1 plant).
As popular opposition in Japan remains strong against reactivating the idled plants, there is no prospect that the construction of new plants will be approved in the foreseeable future. The drive to promote the export of nuclear power plants may have been intended to make up for the loss of demand in the domestic market. But earlier plans for Japanese makers to build plants in Lithuania and Vietnam were canceled, while a civil nuclear cooperation pact signed with India in 2016 — which was aimed at paving the way for Japanese nuclear plant exports to the country — has not resulted in any deal. Along with Hitachi’s decision to halt the U.K. project, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is reportedly set to abandon its plan in Turkey.
Even without construction of new plants, there will be demand for maintaining Japan’s existing nuclear power plants, and for decommissioning its aging plants. What to do with the spent nuclear fuel and the high-level radioactive wastes from the plants will also be among the challenges that confront Japan’s nuclear power business. There will be plenty of work for the industry, and it will be crucial to develop and maintain the technology and manpower to deal with the tasks.

January 25, 2019 Posted by | Japan | , , , | Leave a comment

Sun setting on Japan’s nuclear export sector

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December 16, 2018
Post-Fukushima cost overruns may kill a giant power project in Turkey, and there are few other deals to replace it
Japan’s nuclear export industry could be dealt a fatal blow if Mitsubishi Heavy Industries pulls out of a massive project to build four large power plants on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, as reports have suggested.
The Sinop plant project in Turkey was seen as Japan’s best chance for an industry – battered and bruised after the 2011 tsunami and triple meltdown at Fukushima – to put together a workable export strategy that did not break the bank of potential international customers.
Aside from Sinop, the Japanese industry has only one viable export project still upcoming: Hitachi’s bid to build two reactors on the island of Anglesey in Britain. And even that deal is looking shaky.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has not pulled the plug yet on its stake in the four-reactor project on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, but a slew of domestic media reports and talk in Tokyo, suggests that, in the face of seemingly ever-rising construction costs to meet new safety standards that have been put in place since the 2011 Fukushima disaster, the company will bail.
Fukushima legacy
When the deal was signed with Ankara in 2013, the ownership profile was: 65% awarded to a consortium made up of MHI, Itochu, France’s Areva, and GDF Suez. The other 35% was covered by Turkey’s electric power utility, Elektrik Uretim.
However, in April, Itochu pulled out of the consortium, citing cost overruns. That left the consortium with 51%, and the remaining 49% owned by the Turkish utility.
Without Mitsubishi the viability of the project is in question, sources say, unless Turkey can find a new partner or is willing to take on the project without its largest foreign partner. The Russians, who are building a nuclear complex on Turkey’s southern Mediterranean coast, might be interested.
According to Kyodo, a thorough cost evaluation was to be completed by the end of this year. Itochu waited for the report to be released before bailing out of the deal. MHI is apparently waiting for the study to be completed before deciding its next move.
When the deal with Mitsubishi was signed in 2013, the estimated cost was $18 billion for four 1,100-megawatt nuclear power plants. But overall costs have soared, passing $42 billion in April – when Itochu withdrew, and is now put at about $44 billion.
Cost increases are nothing new in the nuclear power industry, but have been exacerbated in recent years by expensive adjustments phased in to meet more stringent safety concerns following the earthquake and tsunami that destroyed four units of the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The Sinop cost rises, however, also encompass other problems encountered in construction.
Fukushima, one of the most serious nuclear accidents in history, turned most of Japan against nuclear power. Before March 11, 2011, Japan had 54 nuclear plants. All were shut down after the accident and some are slowly returning to service having passed scrutiny by the regulator. Five are expected to restart within the next five years, and eight will likely be decommissioned. But prospects for the remaining plants are unclear.
Aware that no new nuclear plant may ever be built at home amid the anti-atomic public mood, Japan’s nuclear vendors have turned to overseas exports as the Fukushima accident does not appear to have destroyed the Japanese industry brand in other countries.
Endgame for nuclear exports?
If Mitsubishi does pull out of the huge project in Turkey it will be a blow to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who sees international exports of nuclear technology as an important way to boost the economy. On his many trips abroad, he often acts as a salesman for nuclear exports. For example, it was a topic of discussion with Turkish President Recep Erdogan on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting in Argentina.
Details of the conversation were not revealed, but it would be a good bet that they discussed the Sinop project with the threat of Mitsubishi hanging over them, and that Abe sought ways to keep the project viable.
Meanwhile, it is not just MHI that may have doubts about the sector. Japan’s nuclear export industry has suffered plenty of setbacks in the seven years since Fukushima. Questions about the future of the sector hang over all three main players in the sector.
Toshiba, one of Japan’s big-three nuclear constructors, recently pulled out of the nuclear power business overseas after incurring huge losses in the United States.
Toshiba has also suffered something of an administrative meltdown in its quest to win construction contracts in the US. In February it finally unloaded it money-losing American subsidiary, Westinghouse, for $1 billion less than it paid to acquire the company 10 years ago.
If the export program is to remain viable, it may be in Wales, where the British government is seeking to build a two-reactor nuclear power plant on the island of Anglesey. Among those bidding for the project is Japan’s third nuclear constructor, Hitachi, through a subsidiary called Horizon Nuclear.
In the nuclear world, there are constructors – like MHI, Toshiba and Hitachi – and operators, who run the plant after it is completed, and they are not always the same. Japan learned from Korea’s successful bid to build six nuclear plants in the United Arab Emirates that offering to build and also run them – a one-stop service – is key to making sales.
Hitachi is teaming up with the Japan Atomic Power Company, which operates two plants in Japan (although both are currently shut down pending the review by regulators). The plan is to present the British with a package deal.
Now, there are worries that Hitachi might pull out of the British project. Chairman Hiroaka Nakanishi was quoted in the Times of London saying his company was “facing an extreme situation,” and that a final decision on whether to stay with the project or leave it will be made next year.
If Mitsubishi does, as is widely expected, pull out of the huge project in Turkey, the only egg left in Japan’s overseas nuclear export basket will be Wales.

December 20, 2018 Posted by | Japan | , , , | Leave a comment

TEPCO seeks nuclear power industry tie-up with key players

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Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant
August 22, 2018
Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc., operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, has begun talks with the nuclear industry’s key players about a possible tie-up for maintenance and management services and decommissioning of reactors.
The company is in discussions with Chubu Electric Power Co., Hitachi Ltd. and Toshiba Corp., according to sources.
If the talks go well, a consolidation of the nuclear industry could be in the cards, the sources said.
TEPCO seeks to restart two of the seven reactors at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata Prefecture in the near future. Both are boiling water reactors, the same type as those that are to be decommissioned at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
TEPCO operates 11 boiling water reactors, seven of which are located at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant. The remainder are located at the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant.
However, the utility announced in June it would pull the plug on the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant, which suffered damage in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami and narrowly escaped a serious disaster like at its sister plant.
Chubu Electric also operates three boiling water reactors at its Hamaoka nuclear plant in Shizuoka Prefecture. The plant’s two other reactors are in the process of decommissioning.
Hitachi and Toshiba were both involved in the design and construction of those reactors.
The four parties seek to streamline their nuclear energy operations through cooperation in maintenance and management services as well as safety management of their facilities after the restarts of their reactors.
Utilities today face an exceedingly higher price tag for bolstering safety precautions at their plants that are required under the stricter new reactor regulations put in place in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima No. 1 disaster.
With none of their reactors back online, TEPCO and Chubu Electric fell behind other utilities.
Kansai Electric Power Co. and other operators of pressurized water reactors have restarted their plants.
Meanwhile, work to decommission reactors is looming large for TEPCO and other utilities, as many reactors are aging and nearing their 40-year life span.
The four companies are also expected to discuss possible construction of new nuclear plants in the coming years.
TEPCO plans to call on other electric power companies to join a consortium it seeks to set up in fiscal 2020 in connection with its project to construct the Higashidori nuclear plant in Aomori Prefecture. The construction of the facility has been suspended since the quake and tsunami.

August 27, 2018 Posted by | Japan | , , , , | Leave a comment

Toshiba unveils device for Fukushima nuclear reactor probe

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Toshiba Corp. unveiled a pan-tilt camera which it jointly developed with the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning (IRND), to inspect the interior of the damaged primary containment vessel of Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station Unit 2 in Yokohama, Friday, Dec. 22, 2017. The device shown to media Friday is 13 meters (43 feet) long and designed to give officials a deeper view into the nuclear plant’s Unit 2 primary containment vessel, where details on melted fuel damage remain largely unknown.
By Mari Yamaguchi | AP December 22 at 10:10 AM
YOKOHAMA, Japan — Toshiba Corp.’s energy systems unit on Friday unveiled a long telescopic pipe carrying a pan-tilt camera designed to gather crucial information about the situation inside the reactor chambers at Japan’s tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant.
The device is 13 meters (43 feet) long and designed to give officials a deeper view into the nuclear plant’s Unit 2 primary containment vessel, where details on melted fuel damage remain largely unknown.
The Fukushima plant had triple meltdowns following the 2011 quake and tsunami. Finding details about the fuel debris is crucial to determining the right method and technology for its removal at each reactor, the most challenging process to safely carry out the plant’s decades-long decommissioning.
Japan’s stricter, post-Fukushima safety standards also require nuclear plant operators elsewhere to invest more time and money into safety measures.
On Friday, Kansai Electric Power Co. announced that it would decommission two idle reactors at the Ohi Nuclear Power Plant in western Japan, citing the difficulty of adding all the safety requirements at the nearly 40-year-old reactors that would be needed to get approval for their restart.
Reports have said it would cost about 58 billion yen ($500 million) and take 30 years to decommission a reactor, about half the estimated cost to restart one.
Also Friday, Japan Nuclear Fuel said that it was postponing the planned launch of its trouble-plagued spent fuel reprocessing plant by three more years until 2021. It cited delayed approval by the authorities. It also said it was postponing the planned manufacturing of fuel from recycled plutonium and uranium.
The mission involving Toshiba’s new probe at Fukushima’s Unit 2 reactor could come as soon as late January. Company officials said the new device will be sent inside the pedestal, a structure directly below the core, to investigate the area and hopefully to find melted debris.
The device looks like a giant fishing rod about 12 centimeters (4.7 inches) in diameter, from which a unit housing the camera, a dosimeter and thermometer slowly slides down. The probe, attached by a cable on the back, can descend all the way to the bottom of the reactor vessel if it can avoid obstacles, officials said.
Two teams of several engineers will be tasked with the mission, which they will remotely operate from a radiation-free command center at the plant.
A simpler predecessor to the pipe unveiled Friday had captured a limited view of the vessel during a preparatory investigation in February. A crawling robot sent in later in February struggled with debris on the ground and stalled in the end due to higher-than-expected radiation, its intended mission incomplete.
The upgraded probe has been co-developed by Toshiba ESS and International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning, a government-funded unit of construction and nuclear technology companies over the past nine months.

December 23, 2017 Posted by | Fukushima 2017 | , , | Leave a comment

Toshiba asks for banks’ support

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Executives at ailing conglomerate Toshiba have asked banks for additional support. Three main lenders say they are considering providing new lines of credit.

Toshiba executives met with representatives of about 80 financial institutions on Tuesday. They are believed to have discussed the temporary swell in the company’s losses following the bankruptcy of its US nuclear subsidiary Westinghouse.

The firm plans to spin off its mainstay flash memory chip operation. But it will be some time before it sees any gains from selling a majority stake in the new entity.

Toshiba said it needs to secure more than 6.3 billion dollars in fiscal 2017.

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and 2 other main creditor banks proposed additional support on the condition that Toshiba offers shares in the spin-off company as collateral.

The electronics maker has postponed the release of its earnings report twice because it needed to investigate accounting practices at Westinghouse.

It is trying to release the report by Tuesday of next week.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20170404_35/

April 4, 2017 Posted by | Japan | , | Leave a comment

Nuclear disaster of a different kind

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JAPANESE corporate giant Toshiba has announced that its Westinghouse nuclear power unit has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US, largely due to massive cost overruns for four reactor projects the company is building in South Carolina and Georgia. The financial loss to Toshiba is estimated to be about 1 trillion yen (about $9 billion) for the fiscal year that ended yesterday (March 31), which would be one of, if not the biggest, annual loss in Japanese corporate history.

Officials at both W estinghouse and parent company Toshiba are optimistic that the collapse is not total; the financial problems are rooted in Westinghouse’s construction division, while its nuclear fuel and plant operations/maintenance segments remain relatively profitable. On the other hand, the bankruptcy filing is glaring evidence that these same people have been very wrong before; every other objective indicator suggests that Westinghouse’s fall may be a fatal blow to what nuclear advocates were hoping would be a bit of a renaissance for nuclear power worldwide.

The Westinghouse Electric Company LLC is a remnant of the fabled US corporate giant Westinghouse, which was founded in 1886. Through the mid-1990s the original company was gradually broken up and sold off; the brand is still well known worldwide – mainly in household appliances and certain kinds of industrial equipment – but is owned and produced by a variety of unrelated parent companies. The nuclear power business has historically been one of Westinghouse’s strengths, and reached its zenith during the 1970s; a majority of the several dozen operating nuclear reactors in the US were built by Westinghouse, and it built reactors in several other countries. The mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) here in the Philippines is a Westinghouse product.

The company has over the years become embroiled in controversy at times – the BNPP being one example – but on the whole remained fairly sound, and was considered a good investment when it was purchased in 1999 by British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL). BNFL in turn sold Westinghouse to Toshiba in 2006 for $5.4 billion, just at a time when the prevailing view was that nuclear power was about to undergo a resurgence; China, the US and the UK were all then planning to invest heavily in new nuclear power facilities.

Toshiba thought they had a gold mine on their hands. Westinghouse had a new, marketable reactor design – the AP1000 – which had become the first Generation III+ design to receive final design approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 2004. The Japanese parent company sold 10 percent of its stake to the Kazakh national uranium company (Kazatomprom) in 2007 to secure a fuel source and strengthen its supply line, and in the same year won a bid from the China National Nuclear Corporation for construction of four AP1000 reactors and transfer of the AP1000 technology. In 2008, Westinghouse won a contract from Georgia Power Company to build two AP1000 reactors in that state and a second contract to build two more in South Carolina; two years later, the US government announced it would provide $8.3 billion in loan guarantees to complete the Georgia plant.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011 and the boom in natural gas production in the US had a chilling effect on the plans for new nuclear plants in the US. Even without Fukushima raising safety concerns, nuclear plants suddenly became unreasonably expensive compared with gas-fired plants, which put a bit of pressure on Westinghouse. What really sank the company, however, was the enormous cost and schedule overruns at its Georgia and South Carolina projects. Both were expected to cost about $14 billion each, and be operational by the end of last year; so far, they have cost $19 billion and $22 billion, respectively, and are two years or more behind schedule.

To make matters worse, the financial trouble at Westinghouse has raised old, but still not completely answered, questions from regulators – in the US, the UK, and China – about the safety of the AP1000 reactors. Up to now, most of those concerns have been deflected, but what is likely to happen now, even if Westinghouse can continue to satisfactorily convince governments and potential operators of the system’s safety, is that uncertainty over whether the company – or more likely, whoever buys the ailing unit from Toshiba – can be relied on to keep up standards is going to make big customers look elsewhere. And once they do, they are likely to prefer the more economical and less contentious path countries like the US are taking, turning to gas generation or expanding renewables.

http://www.manilatimes.net/nuclear-disaster-different-kind/320327/

April 3, 2017 Posted by | Japan | , | Leave a comment

Toshiba’s nuclear flagship U.S. Westinghouse goes bust after $10 billion losses

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Where Toshiba’s $10bn nuclear debt came from: the Vogtle AP1000 construction site in Georgia, under inspection by NRC Commissioner Svinicki.

Toshiba’s nuclear flagship goes bust after $10 billion losses

News that one of the world’s biggest nuclear power constructors, Westinghouse, has filed for bankruptcy in with debts of over $10 billion has put the entire sector on notice and issued a dire warning to nuclear investors everywhere, writes Jim Green. Among the likely casualties: the UK’s Moorside nuclear complex in Cumbria.

The rapidly-evolving nuclear power crisis escalated dramatically yesterday when US nuclear giant Westinghouse, a subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Toshiba, filed for bankruptcy.

The Chapter 11 filing took place in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York in New York City.

Westinghouse and its parent Toshiba are in crisis because of massive cost overruns building four ‘AP1000’ nuclear power reactors in the southern US states of Georgia and South Carolina.

The combined cost overruns for the four reactors now amount to about $1.2 billion and counting. And it has now emerged that they may never be finished at all. Whether the four reactors will be completed is now subject to an “assessment period”, according to Westinghouse.

The corporate mishap may also signal the end of new nuclear power in the US. No other reactors are under construction in the country and there is no likelihood of any new reactors in the foreseeable future. The US reactor fleet is one of the oldest in the world, with 44 out of its 99 reactors having been operated for four decades or more.

A $10 billion financial hole – and it’s getting deeper!

Toshiba says Westinghouse had debts totalling US$9.8 billion. Plans for new Westinghouse reactors in India, the UK and China are in jeopardy and will likely be cancelled. Bloomberg noted yesterday: “Westinghouse Electric Co., once synonymous with America’s industrial might, wagered its future on nuclear power – and lost.”

The same could be said about Toshiba, which is selling profitable businesses to stave off bankruptcy. Toshiba said yesterday it expects to book a net loss of $9.1 billion for the current fiscal year, which ends on Friday – a record loss for a Japanese manufacturer.

That projected loss is also well over double the estimate provided just last month, raising investor fears that the final figure may be greater still. “Every time they put out an estimate, the loss gets bigger and bigger”, said Zuhair Khan, an analyst at Jefferies in Tokyo. “I don’t think this is the last cockroach we have seen coming out of Toshiba.”

The BBC noted that Toshiba’s share-price has been in freefall, losing more than 60% since the company first unveiled the problems in December 2016. Toshiba president Satoshi Tsunakawa said at a news conference yesterday: “We have all but completely pulled out of the nuclear business overseas.”

Westinghouse is the major member of the Nugen consortium that’s set to build a massive three-reactor AP1000 nuclear complex at Moorside in the UK, next to the Sellafield site. The company has already stated that while it intends to progress the project through planning stages, it is unable to take on financing or construction and intends to sell its share.

Nugen’s other member, the French energy company Engie (formerly GDF Suez) has also gone on record as wanting to extricate itself from the Moorside project in favour of the ‘new energy’ economy based on renewable, storage and smart grid technologies.

It’s now looking increasingly probable that the Moorside project, given the state of the Nugen consortium and the massive failure of the AP1000 design, may never progress to construction.

The good news for the nuclear industry? The UK’s Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR) today – with impeccable timing – accepted the AP1000 design as suitable for construction in the UK and issued Westinghouse a Design Acceptance Certificate.

Is the nuclear game up at last?

A similar crisis is unfolding in France, which has 58 power reactors but just one under construction. French ‘EPR’ reactors under construction in France (Flamanville) and Finland are three times over budget – the combined cost overruns for the two reactors amount to about €12.7 billion and counting.

The French government is selling assets so it can prop up its heavily indebted nuclear utilities Areva and EDF. The French nuclear industry is in its “worst situation ever” according to former EDF director Gérard Magnin.

Meanwhile a simple comparison of decommissioning provision between France and Germany indicates that EDF has massively under-budgetted for its liabilities. Germany has set aside €38 billion to decommission its 17 nuclear reactors (€2.2 billion each), but France has set aside only €23 billion to decommission its 58 reactors (€0.4 billion each).

When the real costs, for which EDF will be liable, come in, they could easily bankrupt the company. This in turn puts the UK’s Hinkley Point double EPR nuclear project, in which EDF is the main partner, in doubt.

The crisis-ridden US, French and Japanese nuclear industries account for half of worldwide nuclear power generation. Other countries with crisis-ridden nuclear programs or nuclear phase-out policies account for more than half of worldwide nuclear power generation.

Meranwhile renewable energy generation doubled over the past decade and strong growth, driven by sharp cost decreases, will continue for the foreseeable future.

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2988820/toshibas_nuclear_flagship_goes_bust_under_10_billion_debt_burden.html

Toshiba’s nuclear unit files for bankruptcy, 1 tril. yen loss eyed

TOKYO (Kyodo) — Toshiba Corp. said Wednesday its troubled U.S. nuclear unit Westinghouse Electric Co. has filed for Chapter 11 and it could post a net loss of over 1 trillion yen, the biggest ever for a Japanese manufacturer.

Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, as the Japanese parent company was rushing to limit further losses from the U.S. unit and looking to exit the money-losing overseas nuclear business.

With the do-or-die decision on the filing, Toshiba will make all-out efforts to move out of its financial woes, Toshiba President Satoshi Tsunakawa told a press conference in Tokyo after Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy.

“We are almost risk-free as we are pulling out of overseas nuclear operations, the biggest problem,” he said.

Toshiba said it could post a group net loss of 1.01 trillion yen ($9.13 billion) for the fiscal year ending on Friday, with massive costs related to the Chapter 11 filing. Westinghouse has $9.8 billion in total liabilities, much of which must be shouldered by Toshiba under a debt guarantee for the U.S. unit.

The estimated net loss would eclipse 787.3 billion yen posted by Hitachi Ltd. in the year to March 2009 following the 2008 global financial crisis and would be much worse than the 390 billion yen loss the company projected in February.

The huge loss would put the company in a negative net worth of 620 billion yen at the end of March, Toshiba said, far larger than the 150 billion yen it previously estimated.

Tsunakawa said that he feels responsibility for the company’s crisis but has no intention to step down as chief executive.

He took the helm at the company last June after it had been hit by an accounting scandal in 2015.

The bankruptcy filing will deconsolidate Westinghouse from Toshiba’s financial results for the current fiscal year.

The company has been under pressure to have Westinghouse file for bankruptcy protection, as the unit is the main cause of its massive losses with delays in U.S. plant projects leading to cost overruns, informed sources have said.

The nuclear-to-electronics conglomerate was looking to finalize losses related to the unit within the current fiscal year through the bankruptcy filing.

In February, Toshiba said it was expecting a loss of 712.5 billion yen in its U.S. nuclear business for the nine months through December on an unaudited basis. The company had to delay its earnings announcement twice, saying it needed more time to look into an accounting problem at Westinghouse.

Faced with ballooning losses, Toshiba had been considering a way to separate itself from the debacle at Westinghouse, which it bought in 2006 as a step to tap into overseas markets.

The cash-strapped company has decided to spin off its prized memory chip business and sell a majority stake, or even the whole operation, to raise funds to bolster its financial standing.

Toshiba closed the first round of bids Wednesday for the new semiconductor division that it plans to establish on Saturday. It has likely attracted 10 bidders and will choose the preferred buyer in May, according to sources close to the matter.

Tsunakawa is confident that the bidders have a strong financial standing and the proceeds from the sale will be able to eliminate the company’s liabilities.

He estimates the value of the chip business at 2 trillion yen at least, and said he expects the value to continue to rise.

Toshiba is seeking support from Korea Electric Power Corp. as a sponsor, aiming to sell its Westinghouse shares to the South Korean utility.

“We are focused on developing a plan of reorganization to emerge from Chapter 11 as a stronger company while continuing to be a global nuclear technology leader,” Westinghouse Interim President and Chief Executive Officer Jose Emeterio Gutierrez said in a release.

The company turned the corner in stemming the bleeding for the time being. But the fate of its turnaround remains unclear.

The sale of Westinghouse and the pullout of the overseas nuclear business will leave the company with no core profit-making businesses after it sold its cash-cow medical business and as it plans to sell its chip operation.

The outlook for the sale of the U.S. unit is far from certain. Toshiba may find it difficult to attract a buyer with slowing demand for nuclear power generation after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis.

http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170330/p2g/00m/0bu/029000c

March 31, 2017 Posted by | USA | , , | Leave a comment

Toshiba Nuclear Losses and Woes

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The logo of Toshiba Corp. is seen at the company’s facility in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, on Monday

Toshiba’s woes weigh heavily on government’s ambition to sell Japan’s nuclear technology

OSAKA – Toshiba’s announcement that it will write down nearly ¥712.5 billion in losses involving its U.S. nuclear unit, Westinghouse, is seen as a major setback for the government’s strategy of selling Japanese nuclear power technology abroad.

Over the past four years, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, and nuclear power players, such as Toshiba/Westinghouse, General Electric-Hitachi and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, have promoted Japanese nuclear reactor technology worldwide.

Attempts to increase exports came even as concern within Japan grew over nuclear safety following a triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 plant in the wake of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The efforts also came as questions were being raised about the total cost of nuclear power compared with other energy sources.

Japanese firms have attempted, with little success, to sell their technologies in countries as diverse as France, Vietnam, India, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and the United Arab Emirates. In June 2016, Toshiba said its goal was to win orders for 45 or more nuclear reactors overseas by 2030.

But Tuesday’s announcement by Toshiba came a few weeks after the company announced it would not take any new construction orders for nuclear reactors, and that it would focus instead on maintenance and decommissioning operations.

That decision effectively ended a decade-long effort by Toshiba, which began when it acquired a majority stake in Westinghouse in 2006, to make nuclear reactors a viable export business.

It follows greater than projected construction costs for four Westinghouse AP1000 next-generation nuclear reactors in the U.S. that have run billions of dollars over budget and are three years behind schedule. Original plans called for their startup around 2019 but that could be delayed.

Yoshimitsu Kobayashi, chairman of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives, told reporters at a regular news conference on Tuesday that promoting nuclear reactor exports was a necessary strategy, but one that needed to be reviewed.

The nuclear power industry requires huge amounts of money for safety,” Kobayashi said.

Given such high costs, we have to think about whether just one company can succeed. We have to keep strong technology in Japan, but we need to rethink how to create a union of private firms” in the nuclear business, he said.

But with Toshiba’s problems and the growing use worldwide of other, cheaper energy sources, including some renewables, anti-nuclear groups see an opportunity for Japan to change its basic policy.

The Japanese government’s nuclear export policy was built on a combination of a poor understanding of the global energy market and self-delusion, said Shaun Burnie, a senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Germany who is currently based in Japan.

The sooner the government and industry realize there is no future for nuclear power either domestically or in exports, the sooner they can concentrate on the energy technology of the future — renewables.”

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/02/15/national/toshibas-woes-weigh-heavily-governments-ambition-sell-japans-nuclear-technology/#.WKTKvBh7Sis

 

VOX POPULI: Toshiba’s plight shows nuclear business is now a treacherous bet

What appears to be a lump of melted nuclear fuel is discernible in a photo, released late last month, of the interior of the crippled No. 2 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

The high radiation level inside the reactor would be lethal to humans so a small robot was expected to start inspecting the interior on Feb. 16. (The robot started inspection around 7:50 a.m.)

The robot is marked with the name TOSHIBA.

While leading the nation in the dismantling of nuclear reactors, Toshiba Corp. has aggressively pursued nuclear power plant construction overseas through its U.S. affiliate.

But on Feb. 14, the company announced a projected loss of 712.5 billion yen ($6.3 billion) in its nuclear business. To survive, Toshiba will have to sell off its profitable businesses piecemeal. To be sure, the company is in for massive restructuring.

The 2011 nuclear accident at the Fukushima plant was one of the indirect causes of Toshiba’s losses. Around the world, tighter regulations have been applied to nuclear power plants because of safety concerns, and Toshiba’s four nuclear plant construction projects in the United States became far more costly than anticipated.

The company has only itself to blame for underestimating the consequences of the Fukushima disaster.

I dropped in at the Toshiba Science Museum in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, the other day. Its impressive array of exhibits included Japan’s first electric refrigerator, washing machine and vacuum cleaner. There was even a portable personal computer, said to be the first of its kind in the world.

Once a prestigious corporation that boasted cutting-edge technology, I wonder how long Toshiba’s decline will continue.

Overseas, Siemens AG of Germany withdrew from the nuclear business after the Fukushima accident, and France’s Areva SA is said to be struggling.

Toshiba’s massive losses remind us anew that the end is drawing near on the era of lucrative nuclear businesses.

A long, tough road lies ahead for the decommissioning of Fukushima’s nuclear reactors. I feel for Toshiba workers who are engaged in this task while their company languishes.

It will soon be six years since the Fukushima disaster. The days of having to confront the gravity of that accident are far from over.

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201702160039.html

 

 

February 17, 2017 Posted by | Japan | , , | Leave a comment

Toshiba to withdraw from nuclear plant construction, chairman to quit

Toshiba Corporation (aka Westinghouse) is withdrawing from the nuclear power construction business… Captains of Toshiba and Westinghouse are abandoning their nuclear Titanic sunk on economic iceberg!!!!!

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Toshiba Corp. will cease taking orders related to the building of nuclear power stations, sources said Saturday, in a move that would effectively mark its withdrawal from the nuclear plant construction business.

The news comes amid reports Toshiba’s chairman may resign over the massive write-down that has doomed the company’s U.S. nuclear business.

The multinational conglomerate said Friday it will review its nuclear operations and spin off its chip business to raise funds in a bid to cover an expected asset impairment loss of up to ¥700 billion ($6.08 billion).

After Toshiba ceases taking new orders, it will focus on maintenance and decommissioning operations, according to the sources.

The company will continue work on four nuclear plants under construction in the United States that are expected to be completed by 2020.

The Japanese industrial conglomerate may announce company chairman Shigenori Shiga’s resignation as soon as Feb. 14, when it reports its April-December financial results, the sources also said.

Shiga once served as president of the U.S. nuclear unit, Westinghouse Electric Co., which Toshiba has said could face a multibillion-dollar loss due to cost overruns from delays in plant projects.

The post of Toshiba chairman is expected to remain vacant after Shiga’s resignation.

Westinghouse Chairman Danny Roderick is also set to step down, the sources said, but Toshiba President Satoshi Tsunakawa is likely to stay on.

Shiga, Roderick and Tsunakawa took their current posts last June as Toshiba reshuffled its management following an accounting scandal that surfaced in 2015.

Shiga was the vice president in charge of the power systems business when Westinghouse acquired CB&I Stone & Webster in late 2015. CB&I Stone & Webster is the U.S. nuclear plant construction firm at the heart of Toshiba’s massive write-down problem.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/01/28/business/corporate-business/toshiba-chairman-resign-struggling-u-s-nuclear-business#.WIycNpKdlmA

Toshiba to sell part of chip business, puts overseas nuclear ops under review

Toshiba Corp (6502.T) said it will sell a minority stake in its memory chip business as it urgently seeks funds to offset an imminent multi-billion dollar writedown, adding that its overseas nuclear division – the cause of its woes – was now under review.

The drastic measures are set to be just some of the tough choices the Japanese conglomerate will have to take as proceeds from the sale are likely to only cover part of a charge that domestic media has put at $6 billion.

Still battered by a 2015 accounting scandal, Toshiba was plunged back into crisis when it emerged late last year that it had to account for huge cost overruns at a U.S. power plant construction business recently acquired by its Westinghouse division.

Describing the nuclear division as no longer a central business focus for the firm, Chief Executive Satoshi Tsunakawa said Toshiba will review Westinghouse’s role in new projects and whether it will embark on new power plant construction. The division will also now fall under direct CEO supervision.

Tsunakawa added Toshiba was looking to sell less than 20 percent of its memory chip business – the world’s biggest NAND flash memory producer after Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) – which comprises the bulk of the conglomerate’s operating profit.

The firm is rushing to complete the sale by the end of the financial year in March as failure to do so will likely mean that shareholder equity – just $3 billion in the wake of the accounting scandal – would be wiped out by the charge.

Sources have said Toshiba aims to raise more than 200 billion yen ($1.7 billion) from the sale and potential investors include private equity firms, business partner Western Digital Corp (WDC.O) and the government-backed Development Bank of Japan.

It is also selling other assets although it ruled out the sales of any of its infrastructure businesses – which include water treatment, railway and elevator firms.

“We’ve been raising funds through sales of stock holdings, real estate and other assets,” Tsunakawa told a news conference without disclosing the amount, adding that various measures were being considered to boost the firm’s capital base by March.

Toshiba also said it may eventually list the memory chip business.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN15A2IT

January 29, 2017 Posted by | Japan | , | Leave a comment

Japan Nuclear Industry on the Defensive

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METI proposed that TEPCO would start a subsidiary to manage all its nuclear plants. Saying it would facilitate restarting the reactors at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa NPP, as since the beginning of the Tepco-owned Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster the government planned to use profits from the Tepco-owned Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP to finance the Fukushima Daiichi disaster costs;  and that it would also encourage collaboration among other utilities nuclear power plants, and make merger or sale easier. METI thinks such change would also encourage the public to support nuclear reactors restarting.

As the total decommissionning costs could double, Tepco would also like the rules to be changed so as not take an added large loss on their books.

One day later Hitachi announced that they consider merging their nuclear business with Toshiba and Mistubishi.

These recent new developments show Japan nuclear industry on the defensive, former PM Koizumi warned the Liberal Democratic Party could lose the next election if it focuses on the nuclear power issue.

Industry ministry unveils plan to split nuclear power division from TEPCO

October 30, 2016 Posted by | Japan | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment