Toshiba Corp. will set up a team of nuclear-plant experts to beef up the company's reactor-decommissioning business, company officials said Wednesday.

Toshiba decided on the move as some reactor operators are moving to shut down and dismantle their facilities, the officials said. The team will comprise about 20 experts, they said.

Toshiba is considering an alliance with European firms that have advanced reactor-dismantling technologies, they added.

Japan Atomic Power Co. is gearing up to dismantle the No. 1 reactor at its Tsuruga nuclear power plant in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, and the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute will decommission the Fugen advanced thermal reactor, also in Tsuruga.

Full-scale dismantling work is expected to begin sometime after 2010, by which time Toshiba's nuclear team will have worked to improve technologies required in dismantling and decommissioning reactors, including cutting, decontaminating and radiation monitoring, the officials said.

The team will also calculate decommissioning costs, enabling Toshiba to quote prices to electric power companies and other reactor operators, they said.

No break for plant staff

Toshiba Corp. said Wednesday it will continue operating its four domestic semiconductor plants throughout the upcoming summer holiday season due to a pickup in the market.

Toshiba's memory-chip plant in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture, will continue full operations through July and August, closing down for only three days in late-July for maintenance work. It had initially planned to halt operations for 14 days over the summer.

The Tokyo-based company also said its Oita and Kitakyushu plants in Oita and Fukuoka prefectures will cancel its 13-day summer holiday in July and nine-day break planned for August. The Oita plant produces large-scale integrated circuits, and the Kitakyushu plant makes bipolar integrated circuits.

The Himeji factory in Hyogo Prefecture, which makes discrete chips, initially planned to stop operations for 14 days but will continue operating except for three days to repair its air-conditioning system between late July and early August, Toshiba said.

"The four plants need to continue operating thanks to an improvement in the market," a company spokesman said.