First Gen books slightly lower earnings in H1

MANILA, Philippines - First Gen Corp. of the Lopez Group booked slightly lower profits in the first half of the year due to the lower contribution from its geothermal and hydropower generating units.

First Gen reported yesterday its net income attributable to equity holders of the parent declined 7.1 percent to $95.3 million in the first six months of the year from $102.6 million in the same period last year.

Its recurring net income attributable to the parent also slipped 7.3 percent to $83.9 million from $90.4 million.

The company said its natural gas plants, namely Santa Rita and San Lorenzo, booked higher earnings contribution due to higher dispatch and insurance claims recovered from their previous transformer incidents.

However, it cited lower earnings from its subsidiaries Energy Development Corp. (EDC) and First Gen Hydro Power Corp. (FG Hydro).

“Despite the positive contribution of the gas projects, EDC’s geothermal operations suffered reliability issues which we are now addressing,” FirstGen president Francis Giles B. Puno said.

EDC’s lower contribution resulted “from the outage of the Tongonan Geothermal Power Plant in Leyte, trading losses on the Unified Leyte Geothermal Plant strip business, higher operating expenses, and typhoon-proofing works.”

FG Hydro, on the other hand, posted a dip in revenues as “the plants suffered from weak spot market prices and a reduction in electricity production caused by lower water availability.”