Japan mulls US$13 billion Fukushima bailout

TEPCO's future as an independent firm has been in doubt since an earthquake and tsunami wrecked the plant in March.

In addition to public capital, the government and TEPCO will also seek additional loans from banks, sources said, but the full scale of any TEPCO bailout remains unclear.

TEPCO President Toshio Nishizawa was mentioned as saying a public fund injection could not be ruled out. “It is better to keep all options, so I don't deny it,” Kyodo news agency quoted him as saying in an interview on Thursday.

TEPCO has made progress in bringing the Fukushima plant under control and is on track to declare a “cold shutdown” before the end of the year. But decommissioning four reactors at the plant is set to cost at least 1.2 trillion yen (US$15.4 billion), a sum that would render TEPCO insolvent if drastic measures to shore up its financial base were not taken, media reports said.

The Mainichi newspaper reported earlier on Thursday that the government planned to inject at least US$13 billion and perhaps as much as US$27 billion, while Kyodo news agency said the total bailout could reach 3 trillion yen (US$38.5 billion) over four years, with half coming from private borrowings.

A government-run bailout fund would buy new stocks such as preferred shares to be issued by the utility, sources said.

Shares in TEPCO slid as much as 17 percent before regaining some ground to end down 11 percent at 244 yen. TEPCO would need to get shareholder approval to raise the ceiling on the number of shares it can issue at its next annual meeting in June.

To cover costs, Asia's biggest utility is pushing for hikes in electricity charges. It also wants permission to restart nuclear reactors, particularly those that have been idled at its biggest plant, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa.

Five of the seven reactors at that plant are off-line for checks or repairs, and two more are scheduled for planned shutdowns before May 2012. But the ruling party has concluded that the public would be unwilling to accept higher electricity fees, particularly at a time when it is being asked to accept a hike in the sales tax, Mainichi said, while restarting idled reactors is difficult due to public fears about safety.

Pushing TEPCO to accept capital would also allow the government to pursue drastic reform of energy policy, including separating power generation from distribution, the paper said. But experts questioned whether the two would necessarily go hand in hand.

TEPCO is due to announce new steps in the coming days, which include an increase in its planned cost cuts over 10 years by 100 billion yen to 2.64 trillion yen as well as the sale of a thermal power plant, a source has said.

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