COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Toshiba Corp. has agreed to pay South Carolina utilities $2.2 billion for two troubled nuclear reactors regardless of whether they're ever completed, officials announced Thursday.
Under the settlement, the Tokyo-based company will pay $1.2 billion to South Carolina Electric & Gas, which owns 55 percent of the project, and $1 billion to state-owned utility Santee Cooper, with owns the remaining 45 percent. Payments will start in October and end in September 2022, the companies said in a joint news release.
The owners of the new reactors at V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Jenkinsville, about 30 miles northwest of Columbia, are still weighing the project's future.
The project was already billions over budget and years behind schedule when its main contractor, Westinghouse, filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.
Its parent company, Toshiba, agrees to pay whether the project's finished, only one reactor is complete or it's abandoned altogether. The project is roughly one-third complete. read more here