First Gen income drops to P4.5 billion

MANILA, Philippines — The profit of Lopez-led power firm First Gen Corp. declined by nine percent to P4.5 billion in the first quarter from a year-ago level of P4.9 billion on the back of lower earnings from its geothermal and natural gas units.

The revenues of the clean and renewable energy provider of the Lopez Group also decreased by nine percent to P33.3 billion from January to March versus last year’s P36 billion amid lower volumes of electricity sold across all platforms.

The company’s natural gas portfolio contributed 65 percent of First Gen’s total consolidated revenues, followed by geothermal, wind and solar plats of Energy Development Corp. (EDC) with 31 percent.

The remaining four percent came from the company’s hydro plants and First Gen Energy Solutions.

The company attributed the decline in revenues of EDC to lower power prices and an increase in its operating expense in its geothermal portfolio.

Likewise, the lower revenues of First Natgas Power Corp. due to the expiration of its power supply agreement with utility provider Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) last February.

“As we expected, First Gen started the year slow with the expiration of San Gabriel’s contract with Meralco. Prices in the market were also generally lower with adequate supply available in (the first quarter of 2024),” First Gen president and COO Francis Giles Puno said.

The earnings of natural gas power plants slipped by four percent to P2.4 billion from P2.5 billion.

The profit of San Gabriel natural gas-fired power plant also went down but was mostly offset by the higher recurring earnings of both the 97-megawatt (MW) Avion power plant and the 1,000 MW Santa Rita power plant.

Puno said San Gabriel went on a major maintenance outage as soon as its contract with Meralco expired to prepare for “the current extreme weather condition” that has increased power demand.

The recurring earnings of EDC, excluding hydro plants, plunged by 33 percent to P1.4 billion from P2.1 billion. The geothermal plants, according to First Gen, generated lower sales and operating income following reduction in electricity prices and electricity sold.

However, the hydro platform’s contribution to the company’s earnings increased by 12 percent to P435 million from P382 million, mainly due to the takeover of the Casecnan plant which resulted in P93 million of income for its one month of operations in the first quarter.

This is despite a lower earnings of the 132 MW Pantabangan-Masiway power plant at P349 million from P387 million.