Meralco income declines to P9.4B

Manila Bulletin 
By Myrna M. Velasco 
Published: July 30, 2013 
The reported net income of power utility giant Manila Electric Company (Meralco) declined slightly to P9.4 billion from last year’s P9.752 billion, but core income was still higher at P9.174 billion during the first half from P9.023 billion.
Meralco chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan laid down this year’s profit guidance of P17 billion from 2012 level of P16.3 billion. Yet he still considers that to be “a modest target.”
Meralco chief finance officer Betty Siy-Yap indicated that there had been increase in sales volume, but the one-time gain logged  in the company’s divestment of Rockwell Land Corporation last year, pushed up its bottom line figure then by additional P770 million.
Without the earnings from Rockwell divestment in the comparative figures, she further explained that the overall income on account of volumes would have been higher.
According to Meralco president Oscar S. Reyes “volume growth was realized across all customer sectors with commercial accounts providing the highest increase,” attributable mainly to new connections and increased consumption.
The growth in demand, according to company executives, had been at average 4 percent year-on-year reaching 16,863 gigawatt hours.
For the second half, a heftier demand expansion of 5 percent is expected.
It has also been stressed that “the slightly higher average distribution rate in 2013 attributable to a better sales mix contributed to the increase in consolidated core net income.”
In terms of revenues, there had been 1.0 percent drop logged by the utility firm to P141.7 billion, mainly due to lower generation costs of its power supply agreements (PSAs) which account for more than 50-percent of its supply.
Company executives have set steady drumbeat on the utility firm’s various power generation forays, including its acquisition in Singapore as well as its proposed Philippine power developments, to be boosting future earnings.
Pangilinan said they are heartened by the pronouncement of support set forth by President Aquino in his State of the Nation Address, with him noting that it “is an encouragement … we get a better hearing from government when it comes to our power plant projects.”
Meralco senior vice president Alfredo S. Panlilio similarly presented “new growth areas” when it comes to demand; courtesy of developments at the Entertainment City.
This is seen shoring up the utility firm’s sales when the tourism-entertainment facilities would kick off operations around 2014 to 2015. These will include the projects of Belle Corporation, Manila Bay Resorts and Travellers International.
For the Singapore liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility acquisition, it was noted that the first unit at its commissioning phase, already reached baseload generation level of 400 megawatts.   source