Meralco sees rise in Q1 sales

MANILA, Philippines–Manila Electric Co. expects its energy sales to increase by 2.5 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2015 from year-ago level as consumption recovered.

Meralco president Oscar Reyes told reporters that combined sales in January and February grew by about 2 percent from the level in the same period in 2014.

“We recovered from negative January (sales),” Rey es said.

January sales dropped by 0.6 percent from a year ago but February was, compared to a year ago, about 2.5 percent higher. Thus, combined January-February sales growth was slightly below 2 percent, he said.

“January was down because we had too many holidays, including the Papal visit. In February, the temperature started getting warm which is seen further rising in March,” he said.

The cool temperature in January also tempered energy consumption, he said.

On the tight supply situation and the Malampaya gas platform shutdown this summer, Reyes said that there might be additional power available for contracting.

Supply and demand seemed stable for the first 15 days of March, Reyes said.

There seems to be enough power reserves at the moment and the key to avoiding outages is keeping the power plants running as expected, Reyes said.