VanEck Vectors Uranium Plus Nuclear Energy ETF (NLR)

[3xBuBu]

Builders' schedule could delay completion of South Carolina nukes

Scana in a few months will ask the South Carolina Public Service Commission for permission to change the schedule for completing two planned nuclear units at the V.C. Summer nuclear station in Fairfield County, South Carolina, and to raise the cap on the project's cost, the company said during a conference call Monday.

Scana said the Westinghouse/CB&I consortium that is building the two nuclear units have proposed a revised schedule that would delay completion of the units by a year or more from what Scana's South Carolina Electric & Gas subsidiary and Santee Cooper had been expecting.

In a statement, Scana said "preliminary information received from the consortium in August indicat[ed] that the substantial completion of Unit 2" --the first of the two planned 1,117-MW units -- "is expected to occur in late 2018 or the first half of 2019, and that the substantial completion of Unit 3 may be approximately 12 months later."

SCE&G and Santee Cooper had been expecting that Unit 2 will start commercial operation in late 2017 or early 2018, and that Unit 3 will come online in late 2018 or early 2019.

SCE&G owns 55% of the two planned units and Santee Cooper owns the remaining 45%. The utilities agreed in January that SCE&G will increase its stake to 60% over the next few years. Byrne said during the conference call that any schedule delay will not affect that deal.



http://www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-power/boston/builders-schedule-could-delay-completion-of-south-21056135