Coal sales, new power plant boost Semirara earnings by 42%

Semirara 2016 earning rose 42 % with coal sales, new power plant

Semirara Mining and Power Corp.’s earnings rose 42 percent in 2016 on the back of record coal sales and the contribution from its newest power plant.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the Consunji-led company said its profits went up to P12.04 billion last year from its P8.47-billion net income in 2015.

“The net contribution to the bottom line by coal, Sem-Calaca Power Corp. (SCPC), and Southwest Luzon Power Generation Corp. (SLPGC), after eliminations, are P5.42 billion, P2.87 billion, and P3.71 million, respectively,” they said.

The composite average price of coal went down nine percent from P1, 943 per ton in 2015 to P1, 885 per ton last year. Low-grade coal it sold to its own power plants more than doubled last year, from 955, 000 tons in 2015 to 1.95 million tons last year, resulting in a lower average price.

For the coal segment, production and coal sales, inclusive of 900, 000 of low-grade coal, reached a new record at 12.8 million tons.

However, SCPC – who operates the 300 MW Calaca based coal-fired power plant – recorded a decline in its profit contributions due to the decreased plant availability.

With the SCPC plants having more downtime, this brought down the total gross generation by 27 percent to 2,909 gigawatt hours (GWH) from 3,959 last year.

This has dragged the total energy sold down to 3, 322 GWh (12 percent) from last year’s 3, 754 GWh.

The average selling price also decreased by 3 percent to P3.31 per KWH from P3.42 per kWh, while cost of energy sold increased 32 percent to 2. 24 per kwh from P1.69 in 2015.

Meanwhile, SLPGC’s 2×150 MW plant kick started its profit contribution P3.22 billion against P40 million in the previous year.

It posted a 555 percent growth in gross generation to 1, 383 GWh, and total volume sold rose by 510 percent from 242 GWh to 1, 478 GWh.

Average selling price also rose by 46 percent at P4. 42 per kwh, versus the previous year’s P3.03 kwh.