AboitizPower posts P13.5B in net income from January-September

By Lenie Lectura -November 7, 2019
from Business Mirror

Aboitiz Power Corp. recorded P13.5 billion in net income for the nine months of the year, 19 percent lower than the P16.7 billion recorded in the same period a year ago.

The power firm posted nonrecurring losses of P220 million versus last year’s losses of P1.7 billion. Without these one-off losses, the company’s core net income was P13.7 billion, 26 percent lower than the P18.4 billion recorded in the same period last year.

This was primarily due to the higher volume and cost of purchased power, lower spot market revenues, and lower plant availability, it reported.

“It has been a tough year for AboitizPower with the supply issues that resulted in the high cost of replacement power for our customers.

“The company has also generated lower revenues from the spot market due to challenges that caused some of our power plants to shut down,” said Emmanuel V. Rubio, AboitizPower chief operating officer.

Still, Rubio said the company remains confident that it will surpass its 2020 target of 4,000 megawatts of attributable capacity. If successful, this will ensure sustainable growth for the company, shareholders and the customers and communities it serves.

The company’s generation and retail supply business recorded consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (Ebitda) of P28.7 billion in the first three quarters of 2019, or 13 percent lower than the P33 billion recorded during the same period last year.

This was driven by the higher volume and cost of purchased power, lower spot market revenues, and lower plant availability.

It explained that spot market prices were high in the first half of 2019 and during that period, the company purchased replacement power due to outages and contracting ahead in preparation for Therma Visayas Inc.’s incoming capacity.

Also, plant availability was lower versus the same period last year due to outages from the company’s coal facilities.

In the distribution business, the company recorded consolidated Ebitda of P6 billion, 3 percent lower than the P6.2 billion recorded during the corresponding period in 2018.

This was primarily due to lost margins from the decommissioning of the Bajada power plant.

Energy sales increase to 4,341 gigawatt-hours, which was 5 percent higher than the 4,136 GWh recorded in the first nine months of 2018. This was primarily driven by the increase in new customers across all segments.