's cost schedulefor its integrated gasification combined-cycle project in Kemper County includesan additional month until the plant comes online, according to an April 26 filing,and raises the projected cost by $53 million.

MississippiPower revised its estimates for the Kemper facility, formally known as , to include additionalschedule costs through Sept. 30, in a progress report filed with the MississippiPublic Service Commission covering construction and development at the facilitythrough March. That is an additional month compared to the report filed April 1 by the utility, which reflected costestimates with an in-service date by Aug. 31.

To reflectthe additional schedule costs through Sept. 30, Mississippi Power increased itscost estimate by approximately $35 million and identified additional costs of $18million. As a result of the revised estimates, Mississippi Power and its parent,Southern Co., recordedtotal pretax charges on the Kemper facility of $53 million, or $33 million aftertax, during the first quarter of 2016. Southern is scheduled to release first-quarterearnings results April 27.

MississippiPower's estimated total project cost for the Kemper facility is $6.72 billion, accordingto the April 26 filing, up from $6.66 billion in the prior month's report.

In itsreport filed April 1, Mississippi Power disclosed that it continued to make repairsand modifications to the refractory lining inside each of the gasifiers and evaluatethe need for additional work, warning that this could affect the schedule and costestimates for Kemper. In its April 26 report, the utility said that based on theevaluation, it continues to expect Kemper to be placed into service during the thirdquarter, running on gas derived from lignite mined on-site. Kemper has been producingpower from natural gas since mid-2014.(Mississippi Docket No. 2009-UA-14)