AFP FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Manila Electric Co., the country’s largest electric utility, is on track to hit a core net income of at least P17 billion this year on strong power demand.
“We’re hoping for higher,” Meralco President and CEO Oscar S. Reyes said in a yearend briefing. “We’re on track for P17 billion or slightly higher.” This boosts the utility’s core profit compared with P16.3 billion in 2012 and P14.9 billion in 2011.
Gadget-wielding consumers and expanding institutional customers are among those driving power sales, according to officials.
Energy sales volume grew by some 3 percent this year. This is slower than the 7 percent sales growth last year but the customer base is larger at 5.3 million this year from 5.19 million in 2012.
Tourism and real estate growth due to the expansion of business process outsourcing firms are also driving demand for electricity. One such real estate development is the 120-hectare Entertainment City or Pagcor City, which is rising in an area surrounded by malls and mixed-use high-rises. The area could later add P3.6 billion to the power distributor’s annual sales.
Meralco is all set to put up a new substation in Parañaque City to serve the needs of the new entertainment hub.
The effect of the deferment of a record P4.15 per kilowatt-hour rate hike (due to higher power generation costs amid the Malampaya maintenance shutdown) that was supposedly due this December remains uncertain. Regulators allowed Meralco to stagger the increase through December as well as February and March 2014 but the Supreme Court stopped the utility firm from collecting any increase.
Meralco earlier said it was keen on sustaining this year’s growth momentum well into 2014 through higher capital spending to P15.6 billion from about P10.8 billion in 2013.
“This is to ensure reliable, adequate and cost-competitive power to our residential, commercial and industrial customers,” Reyes said in a briefing in Hong Kong that was conducted by companies under infrastructure holding firm Metro Pacific Investments Corp., a unit of Hong Kong-listed First Pacific Co. Ltd.