Eskom Profit Surges as International Power Sales Climb 12%

(Bloomberg) -- Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. said full-year profit surged as revenue increased 11 percent and the South African power utility was able to avert supply cuts, raising sales to neighboring countries that have shortages.

Profit was 4.6 billion rand ($311 million) in the year to March 31 from 200 million rand 12 months earlier, the Johannesburg-based company said in a statement handed to reporters in Johannesburg Tuesday. The previous year's figure was hit by a fair-value loss on derivatives, which wasn't repeated in 2016.

While revenue increased to 163.4 billion rand, electricity-sales volumes fell 0.8 percent, with purchases by South African industrial users, the utility's biggest customers, contracting 6.2 percent. Sales to neighboring nations, which are suffering power shortages, climbed 12 percent.

The utility serving the continent's most industrialized economy has maintained consistent power supply for 11 months. Before that, consumers and factories endured almost-daily cuts that curbed manufacturing at a time when a rout in commodity prices hurt the mining industry of the world's biggest platinum producer.

“Generation performance has been stabilized, with continued improvement expected,” Eskom said. “No load-shedding is anticipated,” it said, using a local term for scheduled power cuts.

Power generated by Eskom's plants fell to the lowest since 2006 last year, the utility said in a fact sheet on its website. Still, revenue has increased every year since then as the national energy regulator allowed the company to raise prices by an average 16 percent annually, or more than double the mean inflation rate of 6.1 percent over the 10-year period.

Customer Debts

Of the 27.1 billion rand customers owed Eskom on March 31, 40 percent was more than 60 days overdue, it said. About 14.1 billion rand was current.

The utility has secured about 38.7 billion rand in funding, or 57 percent of the amount needed for the year through March.

--With assistance from Kevin Crowley To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Burkhardt in Johannesburg at pburkhardt@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Thomasson at lthomasson@bloomberg.net, Ana Monteiro