TOKYO: Tokyo Electric Power is to release earnings for the past business year on Friday amid expectations that the giant utility would log multi-billion-dollar losses from its tsunami-triggered nuclear crisis.
TEPCO operates the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and has spewed radiation in the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl 25 years ago.
The firm's president, Masataka Shimizu, will release earnings results for the year ended in March at the utility's head office, the company said.
The Nikkei business daily reported last week that the company was expected to book losses of more than one trillion yen ($12 billion) in the year.
The losses include costs to abolish crippled reactors and do not count compensation it will have to pay to people affected by the crisis, the daily said.
They will also swamp the group net profit of 139.8 billion yen that the firm booked for the nine months to December, it said without naming sources.
The government has devised a scheme to help TEPCO compensate the affected people with an injection of public money.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said last week that banks may have to waive some pre-quake loan terms to TEPCO before people accept the plan for public help to pay compensation.
But the government announcement sparked acrimony and confusion, with lenders calling on the government to provide a clear framework before making such a request.
Edano on Thursday argued TEPCO should be considered "different from usual private companies" as the government helps it.
"We cannot help Tokyo Electric unless it gets people's understanding," he told reporters.
Shares in the utility closed down 7.96 percent at 358 yen on Thursday in Tokyo, having lost around 80 percent of their pre-quake value.
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