Japan PM Kishida to hold ministerial meeting on Tepco nuclear plant restart

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Tuesday the relevant ministers will meet next week to discuss steps needed to secure local consent for restarting Tokyo Electric Power's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant.

Last December, the national nuclear regulator lifted an operational ban imposed in 2021 on the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in northern Japan due to safety breaches, allowing Tepco to work towards gaining local permission to restart.

Tepco has been eager to bring the world's largest nuclear power plant back online to slash operating costs, but still requires local consent.

"The operator and the government must work together to gain local community support for the restart," Kishida told the Green Transformation implementation conference, a government official said.

Kishida, who will step down in September, said: "I will make every effort during my remaining term to advance the green transformation, including preparing for the restart of a nuclear reactor in eastern Japan," according to public broadcaster NHK.

It is rare for a ministerial meeting to focus on a specific power plant.

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata prefecture has been offline since 2012, following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster, which led to the shutdown of all nuclear plants in Japan at the time.

While Tepco received in 2017 initial regulatory approval to restart two reactors of the plant, it had not obtained local consent.

Tepco needs consent from Niigata prefecture governor to resume operations. In March, the prefecture's governor said that more talks were needed over the possible restart of the plant.

Japan has been able to restart only 12 reactors since 2011, with many operators still going through a re-licensing process to comply with stricter safety standards imposed after the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Tomasz Janowski)