Semirara income down 66% to P3.3 B

Published March 5, 2021, 6:00 AM by Myrna M. Velasco
https://mb.com.ph/2021/03/05/semirara-income-down-66-to-p3-3-b/

The consolidated net income after tax (NIAT) of Consunji-led Semirara Mining and Power Corporation (SMPC) nosedived 66-percent to P3.3 billion last year from a robust bottom line outcome of P9.6 billion in 2019.

The company attributed the significant income decline to lower energy sales as well as on sharp demand contraction for coal because of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and import quotas imposed by China.

SMPC similarly reported that its revenues went down by 36.2-percent to P23.3 billion in 2020 versus a heftier P44.3 billion in the prior year.

On the coal segment of its business, SMPC logged substantial income reduction of 71-percent to P1.8 billion last year from a record profit of P6.21 billion in 2019.

The Consunji firm said there was 16-percent downtrend on its sales to 13.1 million metric tons (MMT) from 15.6 MMT in 2019 due to weaker global demand precipitated by the niggling health crisis.

SMPC further cited the lower selling price for coal commodity last year, which dropped by 23-percent to 1,591 per metric ton from the previous year’s P2,074 per MT.

Additionally, the company indicated that overall export sales had decelerated by 27-percent to 7.6MMT from the year-ago level of 10.4MMT. Conversely, demand growth pivoted to the domestic market, which posted an increase of 5.0-percent to 5.5MMT from 5.2MMT in 2019.

On the company’s power generating assets, income from its Sem-Calaca Power Corporation (SCPC) subsidiary inched up by a colossal 2,083-percent to P1.31 billion in 2020 from a very dismal earnings of P6.0 million the year before.

Nevertheless, its other power generating asset under South Luzon Power Generation Corporation (SLPGC) registered income drop of 97-percent to P0.09 billion from a strapping P3.53 billion in 2019.

For the Sem-Calaca power plant in Batangas which is of 600-megawatt capacity, SMPC reported that its gross generation climbed by 106-percent to 3,123 gigawatts last year versus 1,519 GW in 2019.

It emphasized that sales mainly jumped for traded capacity in the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM), with a bustling growth of 600-percent. Overall, SMPC noted that sales – for combination of spot and contracted capacities from the SCPC plant – had jumped 46-percent to 2,692 GW from the previous year’s 1,848 GW.

For the SLPGC generating facility, its gross generation dwindled 25-percent to 1,554GW from 2,070GW in 2019, mainly due to planned and unplanned outages which increased in duration last year.
Sales from the plant also waned by 18-percent to 1,526 GW from the prior year’s 1,854GW; with SMPC noting that bulk of the sales at 57-percent had also been channeled through the spot market.