Japan Govt Aid to TEPCO Compensation Tops 3 T. Yen

Tokyo, Feb. 4 (Jiji Press)--The Japanese government approved Monday an additional 696.8 billion yen of financial support to Tokyo Electric Power Co. <9501> for the payment of damages stemming from its nuclear accident. The third tranche of public funds will lift the government's compensation support for TEPCO to 3,243 billion yen. TEPCO last month asked the government for additional support after the company found its total nuclear damages compensation will be higher than its previous estimate of 2,546.2 billion yen. Public funds are provided to TEPCO via the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund, a public-private body designed to help the troubled power company pay compensation for the accident at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in March 2011. TEPCO will have to repay the money with future profits. TEPCO released the same day a group net loss projection of 120 billion yen for fiscal 2012 ending in March, worse than its previous estimate of a 45-billion-yen loss. The bleaker outlook was attributed to rising fuel costs for thermal power plants due to the yen's recent weakening, amid almost all nuclear power plants in Japan remaining offline since the nuclear accident at TEPCO's Fukushima No. 1 power station in March 2011. TEPCO also warned its group operating loss would expand to 275 billion yen from the previously forecast 225 billion yen. The company's fuel costs are estimated to rise some 20 pct from a year earlier to an all-time high of 2.81 trillion yen in fiscal 2012. "We continue facing the tough earnings situation," TEPCO President Naomi Hirose told a news conference. "We will pour all our efforts to cut costs." For April-December 2012, TEPCO reported a net loss of 2.2 billion yen, though much better than a loss of 623 billion yen logged a year earlier in the aftermath of the nuclear accident. END