Coal powers Semirara income growth in 6 months

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.