Consolidated core net income of Manila Electric Company (Meralco) inched up by 15-percent in the first half this year to P13.1 billion from P11.399 billion in the same period last year, primarily due to six percent increase in energy sales, the main profit driver of the power utility giant.

The utility firm’s reported net income similarly escalated by 32-percent to P13.121 billion within the six-month stretch from the year-ago level of P9.949 billion -- propping its core earnings per share to P11.612, up by 15-percent versus last year.

With that upturn in earnings, Meralco Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan sounded off optimism that the power firm “will be able to sustain its financial performance throughout 2022.”

He stressed the company “will deliver our commitment to our customers and shareholders as we pursue investments aimed at further improving our distribution infrastructure and services, building new power capacities to improve aggregate power supply—all to ensure the country’s long-term energy security.”

Meralco President and CEO Ray C. Espinosa qualified that “despite the brief slowdown due to the Omicron surge early this year, the continued easing of restrictions that coincided with elections-related activities allowed us to surpass our pre-pandemic sales performance in the first half of this year.”

Apart from robust sales, Meralco Chief Finance Officer Betty Siy-Yap emphasized that the other factors which ushered in uptrend in the company’s earnings had been the adjustments made due to last year’s passage of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Act, as well as the recognition of foreign exchange gains this year.

On the revenue sphere, the power firm posted 34-percent climb within January to June this year to P199.6 billion from the prior year’s P149.1 billion, and that was “mainly due to the higher pass-through generation and other charges on account of persisting increase in global fuel prices,”

According to Yap, the revenue contribution of the power generation business of Meralco had been similarly robust – registering a strapping P13.6 billion.

And while Espinosa has been giving guarantee on continued service that Meralco will be extending to its customers, he stated that “we remain cautious about the effect of persisting increase in global fuel prices on our rates.”

Given such market predicament then, the power firm executive noted that they will relentlessly “look for ways to cushion the impact of external volatilities on our operations.”

The way forward for the company, Espinosa conveyed, will be to “move ahead with the execution of sourcing strategies that include our planned CSPs (competitive selection process) - consistent with our Power Supply Procurement Plan, in a timely manner to ensure availability of cost-competitive power for our customers in the long-term.”