Taqa shares fall despite narrowing quarterly losses

Shares in Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (Taqa) sank to a two-month low yesterday morning, despite the company reporting narrowing losses for the third quarter.

The energy investment company’s net loss for the three-month period ended September 30 reduced to Dh194 million from Dh524m reported for the corresponding period last year, Taqa said in a statement to Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, where its shares are traded. Revenues for the period slipped to Dh4.18 billion from Dh4.2bn.

The company’s shares sank more than 7 per cent in early trading, eventually ending the day down 3 per cent.

The third quarter income was pulled down by the unscheduled outage at Oman’s Sohar Aluminum smelter and negative mark-to-market movements at the company’s US power plant tolling agreement during the period, it said in its statement.

The company’s nine-month loss shrank to Dh82m from Dh1.72bn reported for the same period of 2016.

Total liquidity remained strong at Dh12.1bn, including Dh2.9bn in cash and cash equivalents and Dh9.2bn of undrawn credit facilities. The company’s total debt was reduced by Dh2.6bn in the first nine months of 2017 while interest paid reduced by Dh286m.

“The company has been able to reduce our financing costs and gradually lower our debt, which will have a positive impact on our financial performance over the coming years,” said Taqa’s acting chief operating officer Saeed Al Dhaheri.

“We’re pleased to see continued strong free cash flow generation, as well as improved margins across our portfolio, which has benefited from increased efficiencies across our operations. During the period, Taqa achieved first oil at our Atrush development in Iraq, which marks an important milestone for the group.”