Point Lepreau repairs shutdown extended by 'a minimum' 7 days

A shutdown at the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station has been extended for "a minimum" of seven additional days to complete repairs to the heat transport system, says NB Power.

The plant wasexpected to be back online on Monday after the unscheduled shutdown was previously extended from twoweeks to 25 days.

Repairs to the fuelling machine, which caused the initial outage have been completed, butwork on the heat transport system is still underway and most effectively completed while off-line, NB Power said in a statement.

The work should be done by the end of the week, "after which the station will begin the process of progressively powering back up, a graduated process that will take a few days," the utility said.

Point Lepreau was temporarilytaken offline on March 19.

The extended shutdownmeans the plantwill not be able to meet its production targets of running at97 per cent capacity for the 2015-16 fiscal year.

The utility has said each one per centloss in production costs it $4 million per year.