Platts - Thursday, May 01, 2003 http://www.platts.com ------------ Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)--30April2003 Davis-Besse restart delayed until summer FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. (FENOC) officially pushed the restart date of Davis-Besse into the summer. Todd Schneider told Platts this afternoon that the company is now projecting restart "before mid-August." In a press release today, parent company FirstEnergy Corp. said it "expects the plant to be ready for restart in the first half of the summer." But it wasn't clear how the company was defining "summer," and whether the release was referring to the time at which FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. (Fenoc) will have completed its work and applied to the NRC for final restart, or the time at which it will actually begin generating electricity. The restart schedule was discussed at several points during a FirstEnergy conference call today with analysts on first-quarter earnings. FirstEnergy said the continuing outage at Davis-Besse had cost the company $88-million in the first quarter of this year--$52-million for replacement power costs and $36-million for operations & maintenance. Nonetheless, FirstEnergy's earnings were $139-million, or 47 cents/share, compared with $116-million, or 40 cents/share, in first quarter 2002. ------------ Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)--30April2003 Constellation to spend $93-mil on vessel head replacements Calvert Cliffs plans to replace the vessel heads at units 1 and 2, in 2006 and 2007, respectively, Constellation Energy Group said today. During a conference call with analysts on the company's first- quarter earnings, Chairman/President/CEO Mayo Shattuck said Constellation made the decision although the units had had "issue-free inspections" during their most recent outages. He said the combined cost of the replacement for the two units would be about $93- million. He also said that unit 2's shorter-than- expected steam-generator replacement outage, which ended April 22, would boost results 6 cents per share, compared to 2003 guidance. Constellation reported earnings per share, excluding special items, of 36 cents/share for the quarter, compared with 49 cents/share in first quarter 2002. ------------ Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)--29April2003 NRC approves new security orders for nuclear plants NRC approved a revised design basis threat (DBT) for nuclear power plants, as well as approving orders regarding working hours and training for plant security forces. In a press release April 29, NRC described the DBT--details of which are classified--as the largest reasonable threat against which a regulated private guard force should be expected to defend against under existing law. Sources said the revised DBT is a moderation of a January 2003 draft DBT that the industry strongly objected to. Utilities, however, won't see the orders until tomorrow, according to an official at the Nuclear Energy Institute. The public interest Project on Government Oversight (POGO) said it had concerns with NRC's approach to the DBT. POGO's Peter Stockton said today that "NRC appears to be tailoring its requirements to meet the existing capabilities of the plants' private security forces. Instead, NRC should be determining the realistic threat and then sizing the forces to meet that threat." ------------ Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)--29April2003 Spot uranium price rises The spot price of uranium has jumped dramatically in the past week. The Ux Consulting Co. April 28 raised its spot price 50 cents to $10.75 a pound U3O8, and there are analysts who are predicting a price above $11/lb within the next few weeks. "There is a lot of pressure on the market," said one analyst. Utilities, skeptical that prices were increasing, now have confirmation, the analyst said, and this may encourage them to enter the market to buy uranium now before the price rises even more. ------------