Meralco expects to hit profit goal for ’11

Manila Electric Co., the country’s biggest power distributor, is confident of meeting its target net profit of P14.5 billion for 2011, given the modest growth in the volume of electricity sold.

Oscar S. Reyes, senior executive vice president and chief operating officer of Meralco, said the power utility was maintaining its profit guidance, which was 19 percent higher than last year’s P12.2 billion, with an expectation of a modest 1-percent growth in sales volume.

Reyes noted that 2011 was tracking the record year of 2010, which posted an unprecedented increase in sales.

Meralco’s sales in terms of kilowatt-hours increased by 10 percent in 2010 compared with year-ago level, which was way above the normal annual increase of 2.5 percent over the last 10 years.

As such, the expected 1 percent growth this year would still be 11 percent higher than the 2009 level—still a good performance by all counts.

In the meantime, Reyes said Meralco would earmark P10 billion to P11 billion next year to fund its capital expenditure program, most of which would be used for projects such as substation facilities, transformers and distribution lines.

This, according to Reyes, will ensure that Meralco will continue to have a strong distribution system to accommodate an increase in the power load in the next few years.