Aboitiz Power net income up 171% to ₱10.1 B in H1
The capacity contributed by its Dinginin power plant which is undergoing commissioning and testing, as well as the higher dispatch of its generation facilities at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) had propped the remarkable 171percent consolidated net income rise of Aboitiz Power Corporation to ₱10.1 billion on this year’s first half as against the ₱3.7 billion nosedive it suffered from in the same period last year.
The power firm also noted higher water inflow that underpinned the generation of its hydro plants as well as the uptick in electricity demand due to the gradual recovery of economic activities – being the added factors propelling its income growth within the January-June stretch this year.
In the second quarter alone, the company’s profitability posted a surge of 136-percent to ₱4.0 billion as against a relatively very lean ₱1.7 billion a year ago.
Aboitiz Power said it booked nonrecurring foreign exchange gains of ₱34 million within April-June financial review period on the revaluation of its dollar-denominated liabilities, and that was way lower than last year’s ₱251 million non-recurring gains.
“Without these one-off gains, core net income for the second quarter of 2021 was ₱3.9 billion, 175 percent higher year-on-year,” the company expounded.
On the higher WESM dispatch, Aboitiz Power explained that such pertained to heftier volumes traded in compliance with the must-offerrule; and its earnings had also been bolstered up by higher prices that reigned in the spot market due to tight supply conditions in some periods –especially in the summer months of this semester.
The company similarly divulged that it was able to claim liquidated damages “for the delay in the construction of GNPower Dinginin Co. Ltd. and received the final payment for business interruption claims resulting from GNPower Mariveles Energy Center Co. Ltd.’s (GMEC) outages in 2019.”
Relative to the manifest uptick in electricity demand, Aboitiz Power President and CEO Emmanuel V. Rubio said “we’ve seen more economic activity in the first half with the easing of the Covid-related restrictions.”
He qualified “the increase in energy demand helped us recover from our financial performance in the same period last year.”
On the generation and retail supply segment of the company’s business, Aboitiz Power reported that earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) hovered at ₱20.5 billion, or 39-percent higher versus last year six-month EBITDA of ₱14.8 billion.
The power distribution venture of the Aboitiz group, on the other hand, posted EBITDA of ₱4.1 billion in the first half, and that was a 12percent leap vis-à-vis last year’s ₱3.7 billion.
The firm similarly logged 4.0percent hike in energy sales that reached 2,745 gigawatt-hours, which also climbed from the year-ago level of 2,629 GWh.
“This was driven by higher enPLDT ergy consumption resulting from recoveries in demand,” Aboitiz Power conveyed, emphasizing that sales in the residential customersegment had been sustained; while power sales to commercial and industrial end-users escalated “due to looser community quarantines and the resumption of operations of commercial and industrial customers.”
Onward, the company is anticipating the full commercial operation of unit 1 of its Diningin power plant that will then contribute additional 668MW capacity to Luzon grid- and it shall also serve as added income driver for the conglomerate.
The longer term investment focus of the company will be the rollout of a number of blueprinted renewable energy projects – including solar and hydropower installations – which will further reinforce its Cleanergy brand and will also be a succor to its portfolio rebalancing on to the targeted 50:50 thermal-to-RE installation ratio.