Dominion Energy to Replace North Anna Reactor
Vessel Head This Fall
RICHMOND, Va. - Dominion Energy, the electric
generating unit of Dominion (NYSE: D), announced Monday it will purchase a new,
crack-resistant vessel head from a French company and use it to replace the
one at North Anna Power Station Unit 2 this fall. The company will install the
new head in December.
The replacement will have no impact on Dominion's 2002 or
2003 earnings.
The pressurized water reactors used by Dominion Energy and
Electricite de France (EDF), the French energy company, are of virtually identical
design. EDF has a spare vessel head in storage.
Dominion considered repairing the unit until it realized that
repairs would take about as much time as replacing the vessel head.
Thos. E. Capps, chairman, president and chief executive officer,
said:
"It makes economic sense for us to buy this spare vessel
head from EDF and replace it now rather than continue making repairs to the
existing one. We could perform the repairs and safely return the unit to service
for another 18 months and then replace it, as we had originally planned, but
the availability of the EDF spare changed our plans."
Dominion's inspection and analysis of the North Anna Unit
2 vessel head penetrations will not alter the operating or refueling schedules
of the company's three other Virginia nuclear units. The company still intends
to replace the vessel heads on North Anna Unit 1 and Surry Units 1 and 2 during
scheduled refueling outages by the spring of 2005, as announced last month.
The replacement costs are already included in Dominion's future earnings projections.
Dominion is one of the nation's largest producers of energy,
with a production capability of more than 3 trillion British thermal unit of
energy per day. Dominion serves nearly 3.8 million franchise natural gas and
electric customers in five states. For more information about Dominion, visit
the company's Web site at www.dom.com.
