Entergy is in conversations with the NRC and could close on its transfer of the three-unit Indian Point Energy Center license by the middle of 2021, a spokesman said in an earnings call Wednesday.
NRC spokesman Scott Burnell told RadWaste Monitor in an email on Monday the commission is on track to complete its review of the license-transfer application “no later than January.”
The company submitted a joint application with Holtec Decommissioning in November 2019 to transfer its license after the upstate New York plant’s scheduled shut-down in April.
Also in the third quarter, the company’s Michigan-based Palisades Nuclear Generating System completed its final refueling outage.
Entergy on Wednesday reported third-quarter net earnings of $526 million, or $2.59 a share, up from $365 million, or $1.82 a share in the 2019 quarter. Revenue for the 2020 quarter was about $2.9 billion, down a little from some $3.1 billion a year ago. Earnings in the 2019 third quarter included a $141 million adjustment, net of which the year-ago quarter would have been slightly more profitable than the quarter just ended.
Meanwhile, the New Orleans-based company expects full-year 2020 earnings in the range of $5.60 to $5.70 per share.
Entergy’s stock price is down 10% since the beginning of the year and the stock has fallen nearly 9% in the last 12 months, according to the Associated Press. S&P 500 energy stocks have underperformed the index’s 10 other sectors this year and over the last 12 months, according to CNBC. The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund, which tracks energy stocks, has lost nearly 50%, according to CNBC analysts.
Entergy said its adjusted third quarter and year-to-date earnings decreases are due largely to lower revenues from the shutdown of Indian Point 2 in April 2020. The year-to-date variance also reflected lower revenues from the shutdown of the Pilgrim plant in May 2019, the company said.
