Deal Reached to Continue Work at Nuclear Station

SCANA Corp. and Santee Cooper on June 26 announced that the Interim Assessment Agreement with Westinghouse Electric Co. covering the nuclear construction project at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station has been amended to extend the term of the agreement through Aug. 10, 2017, subject to bankruptcy court approval.

The deal allows for a "transition and evaluation period," during which South Carolina Electric & Gas Co., principal subsidiary of SCANA, and V.C. Summer Nuclear Station project co-owner Santee Cooper can continue to make progress on the site.

Westinghouse on March 29 filed voluntary petitions under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The company said it would restructure as a result of financial and construction challenges in its U.S. AP1000 power plant projects. In addition to the V.C. Summer project, Southern Company's nuclear business unit is building two 1,117 MW AP1000 units at its Vogtle station in Georgia. The units, numbered 3 and 4, were the first in the U.S. to be licensed for the Westinghouse reactor technology.

SCE&G and Santee Cooper, a state-owned utility in South Carolina, are building two 1,117-megawatt nuclear electric-generating units at V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Fairfield County, S.C., where V.C. Summer Unit 1 has been in commercial operation for more than 30 years.

Westinghouse is the design and construction contractor. Fluor Corp. is the construction manager.

SCANA and Santee Cooper say that Fluor will remain in its current role and that weekly payments will continue to be made for work performed during the interim period.

The agreement extension allows the co-owners additional time to maintain all of their options by continuing construction on the project, while examining all of the relevant information for a "thorough and careful assessment to determine the most prudent path forward." SCANA and Santee Cooper expect to reach a decision in the third quarter.