PetroEnergy income surges 4-fold in Q1

Higher electricity sales coupled with improved oil revenues pushed up PetroEnergy Resources Corp. (PERC)’s first quarter earnings.

The company said it posted a 327-percent increase in consolidated net income of $4.31 million this year, mainly driven by higher electricity sales from its renewable energy (RE) development and power generation assets and slightly higher crude oil revenues from the Gabon oil production.

Total net electricity exported by the PERC subsidiaries increased from 76.60 gigawatt-hours (gwh) to 102.91 gwh. This translated to gross revenues of P693.46 million compared with last year’s P511.11 million.

“The positive difference in generation between the two periods came from increased net electricity export from the Maibarara and Tarlac power facilities. The feed-in-tariff (FIT)-qualified Tarlac-1 solar facility was put into commercial operation in February 2016 and the 20 MW Maibarara plant increased its load nomination after its major preventive maintenance in the first quarter of 2016.” PERC vice president F.G. Delfin Jr. said.

PERC president Milagros Reyes said the company’s decision to venture in renewable energy six years ago — in addition to it upstream oil business — has started paying off.

She said the 20-megawatt Maibarara geothermal venture was declared in 2011 as the first commercial project under the 2008 RE Law framework by the Department of Energy and was successfully put on stream in 2014.

“This is now being expanded to add another 12 MW generating unit. Since then, we have commissioned two more RE plants, the 36-MW Nabas-1 wind power project in 2015 and the 50 MW(DC) Tarlac-1 solar power facility in 2016,” Reyes said.