OT: Tokyo Electric Shares Drop to 9-Month Low After Quake


not for residents of Ky-OT o ,,...

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aCWh.1vTk3_Y&refer=home

July 19, 2007
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Tokyo Electric Shares Drop to 9-Month Low After Quake (Update3)
By Megumi Yamanaka and Yuji Okada



Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s nuclear power station. July 19 (Bloomberg) --
Shares of Tokyo Electric Power Co. dropped to a nine-month low on concern the
company's nuclear facility in central Japan, the world's biggest, may be shut
for a year after an earthquake caused radioactive leaks.

The stock fell 5.6 percent to close at 3,400 yen, the lowest since Nov. 6 last
year. The shares earlier slumped 7.5 percent, the biggest intraday decline
since Feb. 18, 2000, after the Nikkei said the shutdown will be prolonged by
checks to ensure the plant will resist future earthquakes.

The tremor, which killed 10 people, has wiped $4.3 billion off the market
value at Japan's largest utility this week. Investors sold the stock on
concern the company will have to switch on oil, coal and gas-fired power
plants at a time when prices for the fuels are at or near records. Tokyo
Electric asked six other generators to make up any supply shortfalls.

``Profit is under extreme pressure, as the additional costs for buying
electricity, oil and gas, as well as fixing plants, mount,'' Hirofumi Kawachi,
an analyst at Mizuho Investors Securities Co. in Tokyo, said by phone today.
``The shares are expected to drop continuously, and at least until early next
week we need to watch them closely.''

Government-ordered safety checks may delay the restart of the
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant for at least a year, the Nikkei reported,
without saying where it got the information.



Radioactive Leaks

The earthquake on July 16 caused contaminated water from Tokyo Electric's
plant to escape into the sea and radioactive material to leak from one of its
ventilation systems.

A small amount of radioactive material has been leaking from the ventilation
system at Tokyo Electric's No. 7 reactor for at least the past three days,
Japan's trade ministry said in a statement today.

Until yesterday, about 402 million becquerels of radioactivity were released,
Hisanori Nei, director of the trade ministry's Nuclear Power Inspection
department told reporters. That's about a 10 millionth of Japan's legal limit,
the ministry said in the statement.

``We ordered Tokyo Electric to check the cause of the leak and to take
measures to prevent any recurrence,'' Nei said. Tokyo Electric was ordered to
halt the ventilation system and ensure the leak is stopped, he said.

A becquerel, the standard international measure of radioactivity, is one
atomic decay per second, according to the World Nuclear Association. The
radioactivity of an adult human body is 7,000 becquerels, while 1 kilogram of
uranium has 25 million becquerels, the association said on its Web site.



Back-up plan

Tokyo Electric is reviewing its electricity supply plan to prepare for summer
when consumption typically peaks as customers switch on air-conditioners.

``We are drafting a back-up plan to ensure supplies,'' Manabu Takeyama, a
spokesman for the utility, said by phone.

Tokyo Electric is studying starting up as many as six gas, oil and heavy fuel
oil-fired power plants, with total capacity of about 2 million kilowatts, that
had been mothballed, Takeyama said. It's also reviewing whether maintenance
shutdowns of reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini plants can
be shortened or postponed until after the summer season.

The utility's current generating capacity stands at about 58 million
kilowatts, compared with forecast demand of about 61 million kilowatts for the
summer in Tokyo and surrounding areas. Tokyo Electric's Fukushima Daiichi and
Daini stations can generate 9,096 megawatts of power from a total of 10
reactors.



Powerful Earthquake

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant was not designed to withstand an earthquake as
powerful as the magnitude 6.8 tremor that struck Niigata prefecture in central
Japan, nor does the facility meet the trade ministry's new earthquake
standards put in place last year, Akira Fukushima, deputy director-general for
safety examinations at the nuclear and industrial safety agency, told
reporters in Tokyo yesterday.

The trade ministry last year updated regulations to make the nation's nuclear
power stations more earthquake resistant.

The four operating reactors at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa were shut automatically
after the earthquake, and the other three had already been halted for routine
maintenance, Tokyo Electric said on its Web site. The plant is 9 kilometers
(5.6 miles) from the epicenter of the quake, Yasuhisa Shiozaki, the
government's chief cabinet secretary, said on July 17.

Reports by Japan's weather bureau suggest ``a fault line runs under the plant
grounds,'' Fukushima said.



Government Criticism

The trade ministry and Kashiwazaki town authorities ordered Tokyo Electric to
keep the seven reactors idle pending safety checks. The government criticized
the company for being slow to disclose the radioactive leaks.

Tokyo Electric is investigating 12 more cases of possible radioactive leaks,
Tsutomu Uetsuhara, general manager at the utility's nuclear department, said
yesterday.

Japan has 55 reactors that generate about one-third of the country's power,
making the nation the third-largest nuclear producer in the world. Tokyo
Electric operates 17 reactors.



To contact the reporters on this story:
Megumi Yamanaka in Tokyo at myamanaka@xxxxxxxxxxxxx .


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