TEPCO Doubles Estimate for Fukushima Clean Up to $125 Billion

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has said admitted that the cost of cleaning up after the Fukushima disaster and paying off the compensation claims made may double from the five trillion yen it had estimated back in April, to ten trillion yen ($125 billion).

The company released a statement today that said, “there is a view that we may need the same amount (again) of additional money for the decontamination of low-level radiation areas and costs of temporary facilities for storing waste.”

In April the Japanese government gave TEPCO one trillion yen in exchange for a controlling stake in the company. The money was needed to prevent the company, the largest energy utility in Japan, from going under.

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To meet this new figure of ten trillion yen the company would need more support from the government, and that has left TEPCO’s chairman, Kazuhiko Shimokobe, very worried.

“If we address the swelling costs by doubling the amount of government bond issuance our firm will become an entity only for the purpose of dealing with post-accident issues. It will become difficult for us to raise money from the private sector so we will have to rely on the government for the financing of all of our business.”

By. Charles Kennedy of Oilprice.com