Even at $25 Billion, Southern Sees Value in Finishing Nukes
- Southern CEO sees benefits of completing unfinished units
- Fate of Vogtle reactors to be decided this month, CEO says
Tom Fanning, chief executive officer and chairman at Southern Co., discusses second-quarter results and progress made on a nuclear plant project. He speaks with Bloomberg's David Westin on 'Bloomberg Daybreak: Americas.' (Source: Bloomberg)
Southern Co. still sees benefits in finishing two long-delayed, over-budget nuclear reactors in Georgia, even as new cost estimates show the overall price tag of the project has swelled to at least $25 billion.
Southern Chief Executive Officer Tom Fanning stressed that, while the U.S. utility owner is still deciding the fate of the Vogtle nuclear project, dropping it altogether would leave the company with “nothing to show” for its investment. Southern, which owns a 46 percent stake in the reactors, would have to shoulder at least $11.5 billion in costs alone, including financing expenses, to finish the plant by February 2022, company estimates released Wednesday show. That excludes $1.7 billion that Southern’s slated to get after the project’s contractor, Westinghouse Electric, went bankrupt.