Days after abandoning nuclear project, SCANA says it earned $121 million last quarter

The SCANA Corp. announced Thursday that its earnings during the second quarter were $16 million — or 15 percent — higher than the same quarter in 2016.

SCANA’s total earnings during the quarter were $121 million, or 85 cents per share. Last year, the company earned $105 million during the quarter.

The report comes four days after SCANA, the parent company of SCE&G, decided to abandon its nuclear construction project in Jenkinsville, which resulted in the loss of about 5,000 jobs. The decision was made after customers paid about $1.4 billion for the project, which would have added two nuclear reactors to the existing reactor at the V.C. Summer nuclear station in Jenkinsville.

The higher earnings were caused in part by higher electric and gas margins and lower operations and maintenance expenses. Abnormal weather caused earnings to increase by 4 cents per share, the company said.

For the first six months of the fiscal year, SCANA’s earnings were $292 million, or $11 million more than the same period of 2016.

This story was originally published August 3, 2017 at 11:06 AM with the headline "Days after abandoning nuclear project, SCANA says it earned $121 million last quarter."