Taiwan Power Company (Taipower, 台電) received official notice from the Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday morning ordering a restart of work on the Fourth Nuclear Plant Plant (核四).
The notice coincided with the first official request by General Electric Corp (GE), which is building the two 1,350-megawatt reactors in a US$1.8 billion contract, for an undisclosed amount of compensation for the three-month delay.
The economic ministry acted swiftly, not waiting for official notice from the Cabinet to order Taipower back to work, with officials saying the ministry would shoulder "full responsibility" for the order.
It is likely the ministry was trying to minimize already staggering losses to Taipower -- estimated at NT$6.5 million per day. Another likely motivation was a desire to restate its authority over state-run Taipower after dragging its feet in responding to requests by the utility for instructions on how to handle a potential exodus of contractors as they began to bail in the closing weeks of the delay.
After receiving notice, Taipower workers at the Kungliao site began immediately to prepare for the full resumption of construction work, which according to Taipower President Kuo Chun-huei (郭俊惠) will take three months, according to the Central News Agency.
Kuo, who spoke at a breakfast meeting hosted by lawmakers from the People First Party also said that how or whether Taipower should shoulder the losses incurred by suspension of the project can only be decided after Taipower completes negotiations with its contractors.
PFP legislators have said that the losses should not be shouldered by Taipower, adding that it should be covered by government appropriations or by those who made the decision to scrap it in the first place, said CNA.
US-based GE became the first of the foreign contractors to submit a request for compensation for losses incurred during the three-month delay, Taipower executives confirmed yesterday. GE had submitted a detailed list of costs incurred by the delay to the utility, said Taipower executives, who declined to put a dollar figure to the request.
Compensation demands from domestic contractors are set to come thick and fast from all domestic contractors and together with losses on interest for loans and lost operating time for the plant may cost Taipower upwards of NT$2.8 billion, according to local media.
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