Buoyed by the strong financial showing of its power generation business portfolio, the consolidated core net income of power utility giant Manila Electric Company (Meralco) had surged 53-percent to P30.023 billion in this year’s nine-month period versus P19.605 billion within a comparative period in 2022.

The company’s reported income within the three-quarter period, according to Meralco Chief Finance Officer Betty Siy-Yap, also climbed 44% P28.399 billion from the year-ago level of P19.758 billion.

Core earnings per share, she noted, topped P26.638 and that went up 53%; while reported earnings per share surged 44% to P25.197.

Whipped up by the record leap in the company’s income within the January-September timeframe, Meralco Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan indicated that “absent a black swan event, Meralco core net income for the full year is likely to land at P37 billion.”

He added “given the robust performance of practically all of our businesses, it is likely that Meralco will deliver another year of record earnings consistent with its long arc of earnings growth these past 14 years.”

Pangilinan qualified that “beyond our traditional role of providing power and services to our customers at affordable rates, Meralco takes to heart our overarching mission of improving people’s welfare, in coordination with and with the support of the government.”

Yap emphasized that the main catalyst to the company’s profitability upturn had been the P13.4 billion income contribution of its Pacific Light liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Jurong Island, Singapore; and propped by the P2.9 billion income yield of San Buenaventura Power Ltd. coal plant; then the P1.3 billion income contribution of Global Business Power Corp (GBP) thermal plants; as well as the P72 million profit coming from MGreen.

The utility firm explained that the all-time high income of Pacific Light had been mainly traced to “higher blended margins;” while for the SBPL plant, it logged high plant availability settling at 95%.

On top of that, Yap similarly cited the 7.0-percent expansion in energy sales to 48,308-gigawatt-hours (GWhs) as another major factor which propelled the utility firm’s top and bottom-line figures within the nine-month period.

In terms of consolidated revenues, Yap specified that this went up by 6.0% within the period to P335.2 billion versus P314.9 billion in 2022, “due to higher volumes distributed and higher pass-through charges,” coupled with the impact of the Philippine peso’s depreciation.

Additionally, Meralco Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Ronnie L Aperocho said “we observed the sustained upward trajectory in the volume of energy sold throughout the nine-month period across all customers.”

He asserted there is high expectation that the uptrend in sales will likely be sustained, but the developments providing counterweight to that would be the anticipated hike in gas prices as well as the recurring gas restriction dilemma of the Malampaya field.