While corporate peers are scrambling for upturn in profits, Consunji-led Semirara Mining and Power Corporation (SMPC) is laughing on its way to the bank as its nine-month income soared 250-percent to record-high P36 billion from leaner P10.3 billion las year.
The company, which has been reaping earnings from its coal mining operations as well as in power generation, also surpassed its full-year 2021 profit of P16.2 billion – and it has another quarter more to boost its bottom line.
SMPC indicated that its extraordinary income surge had been “mainly due to the combined effect of elevated market prices, all-time high coal production and higher spot electricity sales volume.”
As emphasized by SMPC President and Chief Operating Officer Maria Cristina C. Gotianun, this is considered record-breaking when it comes to the firm’s financial performance, because third quarter is typically the period when they’ve been registering dip in earnings.
“Historically, the third quarter is our slowest because of the rainy season and sluggish demand. But because of improved market prices, we did much better than expected,” she explained.
Gotianun highlighted that within this year’s July to September stretch alone, the scale of earnings reached P10.2 billion, posting an uptick of 153-percent from the year-ago level of P4.0 billion within the comparative period.
On coal prices, SMPC conveyed that average selling prices of coal lifted from its Semirara mine had been traded at elevated prices, reaching an average of P5,244 per metric ton, higher by 122-percent from P2,351 per MT in the same January-September period in 2021.
In particular, the price of Newcastle-indexed coal swelled 191-percent to $353.80 per MT versus $121.70 last year; while the trading price of Indonesian coal similarly went up by 50-percent to $84.30 per MT from $56.10 per MT a year ago.
Semirara mine’s coal production likewise expanded by 27-percent to 13.7 million metric tons (MMT) from 10.8 million MT, and that was primarily attributed to “controlled water seepage levels in Molave mine and better coal access in East Block 4 and South Block 5.”
The power generation segment of its business also registered remarkable income upswing propelled by combined increase in energy sales and the escalation of settlement prices in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market.
SMPC said its spot sales of electricity inched up to 1,546 gigawatt-hours from 489 GWh in the same nine-month duration last year; on account of 5.0-percent improvement on plant availability and at least 7.0-percent growth in gross generation.
The company indicated that its drift away from bilateral contracts proved more beneficial, given that spot market prices climbed 38-percent within the financial review period to P7.33 per kilowatt hour (kWh) vis-à-vis P5.30 per kWh last year.