The utility behind the unfolding Japanese nuclear disaster reported a ¥571.7 billion (US$7.4 billion) quarterly loss yesterday and its president is expecting the red ink to swell over restoration and compensation costs.
Tokyo Electric Power Co’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant was sent into meltdown by the March 11 quake and tsunami, and has still not been brought under control.
President Toshio Nishizawa, said yesterday he still did not know the full extent of the red ink because of too many unknowns — such as the size of future compensation payments.
He also said he did not know how much of a government bailout may be needed to ride out the disaster, but promised that his company was trying to take care of problems on its own by selling assets and cutting costs.
“We will put in our best effort,” he told reporters. “We have not been able to make an assessment yet.”
The utility had a loss of ¥5.4 billion in the April to June quarter the previous year. It sank into a ¥1.25 trillion loss for the fiscal year that ended March over the disaster.
TEPCO said its extraordinary loss for the April to June quarter this year reflected damage compensation totaling ¥397.7 billion, while restoration costs and losses totaled ¥105.5 billion.
Another factor crimping TEPCO’s bottom-line is that Japanese companies are cutting back on electricity consumption by 15 percent because of possible power shortages caused by the Fukushima Dai-ichi woes.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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