ATLANTA — Southern Co. shareholders will absorb $450 million in losses incurred while building a new coal-fired power plant in Mississippi, raising the total write-offs on the construction project to nearly $1 billion, utility officials said Tuesday.
The utility announced the pre-tax write-off on its massive project in Mississippi’s Kemper County before releasing its second-quarter earnings Wednesday. Company officials had earlier estimated the most recent charge would be around $160 million or more, significantly less than the losses announced late Tuesday. After taxes, the loss is estimated at $278 million.
“I cannot guarantee, will not guarantee, that there won’t be further increases, but, again, feel good about the process that we are going through to forecast, estimate what we have left to spend to complete the project,” Mississippi Power CEO Ed Holland told The Associated Press in an interview.
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