First Gen net income jumped 19% to $200M in 2016
First Gen Corp. saw its net income jump 19 percent to $200 million in 2016 on nonrecurring revenues from two power plants in Batangas, Sorsogon and Albay.
“Though 2016 was a year not without its challenges, it was also the year First Gen achieved its highest net income,” company president and COO Francis Giles B. Puno said in a statement.
“We are optimistic that this trend will continue with the addition of our two newest natural gas-fired plants—the 414-megaWatt San Gabriel flex plant and the 97 MW-Avion peaking plant—that will deliver full-year operations this year, alongside marked improvements in the operations of EDC’s 100-percent renewable portfolio,” Puno added.
FirstGen said the San Gabriel combined cycle plant in Batangas, along with Energy Development Corp.’s 140-mW BacMan geothermal plant, booked non-recurring income last year.
On a recurring basis, FirstGen’s attributable net income for 2016 was flat at $162 million as lower spot market prices offset the benefit of higher dispatch that most of the group’s power plants enjoyed.
The company said consolidated revenues from the sale of electricity dropped 15 percent to $1.56 billion from $1.84 billion in 2015.
FirstGen’s biggest plants in its portfolio—the 1,000-mW Santa Rita and the 500-mW San Lorenzo natural gas-fired power plants—represented 53 percent or $827 million of consolidated revenues.
However, the amount reflected a 23-percent fall in revenues, which was blamed on lower fuel pass-through prices as well as lower combined dispatch of the gas plants—75 percent in 2016 from 81 percent in 2015.
