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Manila Bulletin devider Business devider First Gen income down 8% to $194 M

First Gen income down 8% to $194 M

Published Nov 14, 2022 03:22 pm

Lopez-led First Gen Corporation net income declined by eight percent to $194 million in three quarters this year from the year-ago level of $211 million.

But due to the depreciation of the Philippine peso versus the US dollar, the company was able to register flat earnings at P10.2 billion during the period.

“On a translated Philippine peso basis, the US dollar books of First Gen have benefited from foreign exchange translation gains with the depreciation of the local currency as evidenced by the translated Philippine peso figures,” the Lopez firm conveyed.

The foreign exchange rate employed in its financial review averaged P52.740 to the US dollar for the January-September period this year from P48.634 average in 2021.

The company further reported that its revenues within the nine-month stretch climbed by 24-percent from $390 million to $1.996 billion (P105.2 billion) from last year’s $1.606 billion (P78.1 billion).

According to First Gen, its higher revenues had been attributed to jump in sales due to “elevated fuel and Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) prices.”

It specified that revenues from its gas plants’ portfolio accounted for the lion’s share of 65-percent, while the renewable energy (RE) plants of subsidiary Energy Development Corporation (EDC) contributed 31 percent share, and the balance of 4.0-percent from its hydro assets.

“The natural gas platform suffered from reduced income as the natural gas plants were affected by higher taxes, interest expenses, and various operational issues at the 420-megawatt San Gabriel power plant and 97MW Avion power plant,” First Gen President and COO Francis Giles B. Puno said.

Conversely, he indicated that overall earnings saw EDC make a recovery from higher spot market prices and inflation-adjusted prices for its power purchase agreements.

He also explained that the company’s gas power fleet continued to be beset by fuel supply curtailment from Malampaya that required the company to use more costly liquid fuel.

Puno, nevertheless, emphasized that the expected commercial operations of our LNG (liquefied natural gas) terminal in the second half of 2023 will help address fuel supply security issues.

The company’s gas business segment, in particular, logged 13-percent drop in recurring earnings in the January-September period this year to $142 million (P7.5 billion) vis-à-vis $163 million (P7.9 billion) in 2021.

It was noted that last January, the power firm’s San Gabriel plant “had to recognize lower capacity fees due to insufficient availability of gas supply from Malampaya,” adding that such reduced performance was exacerbated by the need to buy replacement power for San Gabriel

in the third quarter of the year.

Additionally, the company’s Avion plant suffered unscheduled outages in December due to ‘turbine damage’, and it was only able to go back to operation around February this year; hence, that affected the facility’s overall margins from merchant power sales.

For its EDC subsidiary, sales and operating income had been buoyed by its Unified Leyte plant, mainly due to “increased WESM sales and higher electricity prices from its contracts.” This enabled to offset foregone earnings due to the impact of typhoon Odette in the latter part of last year.

Related Tags

#FIRSTGEN #3Q2022 #INCOME #GASPLANTS #MALAMPAYA #EDC #RE #FOREX
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