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Tepco counts cost of earthquake

By David Pilling in Tokyo
Published: July 22 2007 20:04 | Last updated: July 22 2007 20:04

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Tokyo Electric Power, Japan’s biggest utility, has started counting the cost of the Niigata earthquake, which last week brought the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, the biggest in the world, to a complete shutdown.

The company yesterday said it expected to come out with estimates of the cost by the end of the month. An official would not comment on calculations from the Nikkei newspaper suggesting continued closure of the plant could cost Tepco Y200bn ($1.6bn), halving its projected pre-tax profits for the current fiscal year.