Point Lepreau nuclear plant offline until mid-November

N.B. Power's Point Lepreau nuclear generating station will remain out of service until at least mid-November.

The utility confirmed in a press release Thursday that it won't be able to achieve what it had called a best-case scenario of resuming operations in September.

N.B. Power took the plant offline in April for a planned 100-day maintenance period but discovered other problems at the generating station during that work.

The issue with the one-million-horsepower electrical generator still isn't clear.

"The full extent of this issue is still being investigated and we are working toward resolving it," Thursday's statement said.

"While new developments can always affect schedules, our team is working toward a goal of restoring operations by mid-November."

The utility chose not to make anyone available for interviews.

Last month N.B. Power told the Energy and Utilities Board that the extended outage would cost $71 million in repairs and lost power production if it lasted until the best-case restart scenario in September.

Officials didn't say what the worst-case scenario was.

More than a decade of equipment failures and disappointing performance at the nuclear plant has left N.B. Power more than $5.3 billion in debt, with multi-billion-dollar capital projects on its horizon.

The utility is asking the utilities boardto approve steep rake hikes to allow it to start fixing its financial problems, including a debt of more than $5 billion.

Its Thursday statement said its other generating stations and utilities in neighbouring jurisdictions are providing electricity to make up for the Lepreau outage.

Spokesperson Dominique Couture said the Coleson Cove and Bayside plants "are fully operational," while the Belledune coal-fired station is offline for planned maintenance to ensure it runs reliably this winter.