Danessa Rivera (The Philippine Star)
- August 11, 2018 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Despite power
plant shutdowns, Semirara Mining and Power Corp. (SMPC) managed to increase its
net earnings by three percent in the first semester owing to the robust
performance of its coal business.
In a disclosure to the Philippine
Stock Exchange yesterday, SMPC said its net income inched up to P8.1 billion.
The coal segment continued to
benefit from stable benchmark prices while cushioning the impact of plant
shutdowns of its power segment. It saw improved margins year-on-year as global
coal prices dipped in April then recovered by June.
Despite the lower production, coal
sales increased by nine percent to 6.9 million MT on the back of an 11
percent expansion in domestic demand and six percent climb in coal exports.
This allowed the business segment to
book core profits of P7.2 billion, 35 percent better than last year.
As for the power generation
business, plants under SMPC’s two subsidiaries underwent maintenance outage and
forced shutdown.
Sem-Calaca Power Corp. (SCPC)—which
owns and operates the 2x300-megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant in Calaca,
Batangas—reported a five percent decline in gross generation from 1,311
gigawatt-hours (gwh).
“Unit 2 was on maintenance shutdown
for the first three months of the year, and the maintenance activities spilled
over up to the first week of April. Following a brief shutdown in March, Unit 1
ran continuously in the second quarter,” SMPC said.
Because of this, sales volume
decreased three percent to 1,355 gwh. But with 10 percent better prices, SCPC’s
total revenues increased six percent to P5.7 billion.
Meanwhile, Southwest Luzon Power
Generation Corp. (SLPGC) registered a 46 percent slide in gross generation
to 442 gwh.
Composite average price per
kilowatt-hour (kwh) increased by 24 percent to P5.36 per kwh, partially
offsetting the 41 percent decline in sales volume as a result of the continued
shutdown of SLPGC’s Unit 1.
Core profits of SCPC dropped 68
percent to P373 million while SLPGC’s core earnings also recorded a 66 percent
decline to P478 million.
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