SCANA Corporation (SCG)

[eFinanceMarkets]

$SCG SCANA upgraded at Barclays after nuclear project abandoned

SCANA (SCG +4.1%) is upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight with a $73 price target, raised from $65, at Barclays on optimism over the company's decision to abandon its new nuclear construction project at the V.C. Summer site.

Barclays sees a 50% chance - the most likely scenario - that SCG will recover all the money it spent on the project and execute a $650M share buyback initiative; the firm attributes a 10% chance that SCG will recover all of its money but be forced to spend $650M on building natural gas plants, and a 30% chance that it will get back half the money and use the money it is collecting from Toshiba to cut electricity rates.

The firm sees a 10% chance that SCG's net investment in the project is securitized, which it says would be a worst case scenario for the company.