Tongonan geothermal plant outage pulls down EDC income to P7 billion

by Myrna Velasco November 11, 2015

http://www.mb.com.ph/tongonan-geothermal-plant-outage-pulls-down-edc-income-to-p7-billion/

The nine-month consolidated recurring net income of Lopez-held Energy Development Corporation (EDC) had been pulled down 10 percent to P7.0 billion in the three quarters from P7.8 billion because of outages experienced at its Tongonan geothermal power plant.

Factoring in non-recurring items though, the company has emphasized that its consolidated net income attributable to equity holders of the parent firm had been at P5.9 billion, slashed by a significant 43 percent from last year’s P10.4 billion.

The decline in revenues from the Tongonan facility’s interrupted operations had been compounded by reported higher operating expenses of the company; and income tax payments due to its hydro plants.

“The decrease is mainly due to the lower output of the Tongonan plant resulting from the unplanned outage of a 37.5MW (megawatt) unit early in 2015,” the company has expounded.

EDC further logged jacked up operating expenses “largely spent on typhoon resiliency works, and the commencement of income tax payments of the hydro unit Pantabangan-Masiway following the expiration of its income tax holiday last April 2014.”

On the other factors waning its profitability, the Lopez firm has cited the heftier foreign exchange losses reaching P1.2 billion over the nine-month period compared to last year’s leaner P0.2 billion.

It similarly indicated “the absence of any impairment reversals this year,” whereas last year, the company booked P2.0 billion of such item on its Northern Negros power facility.

EDC president and chief operating officer Richard B. Tantoco said the company will “continue to proactively invest in both typhoon resiliency and equipment upgrades to increase output, improve reliability and boost the energy and cash generation of our power plants.”

Revenue-wise, the company had been on a more favorable pace, having logged P25.3 billion during the financial review period. That had been P2.3-billion jump or an equivalent 10-percent hike from last year’s P23.0 billion.

It explained that “the increase was largely on account of higher energy sales coming from the newly-rehabilitated BacMan (Bacon-Manito) power plants.”

EDC added that the contribution of the BacMan facility to the top line had been P1.2 billion; while that of the re-commissioned Nasulo geothermal plant was P0.6 billion.

The feed-in-tariff supported 150MW Burgos wind plant of the company also raked in revenues amounting to P1.3 billion from January to September this year.

Tantoco has emphasized that the completion of the uprated Laoag-San Esteban transmission will enable their Burgos wind farm to reach up to 75 percent of targeted sales in the next six months.