Trade Arabia reported that Abu Dhabi National Energy Company net profit for the H1 increased 67.% YoY to hit AED 981 million compared to AED 587 million in 2011.
However, the company saw its total revenues drop 6.3% YoY to AED 11.8 billion from last year's revenue of AED 12.6 billion mainly due to lower supplemental fuel usage during the period.
TAQA said that its total oil and gas revenues decreased from Dh6 billion to AED 5.9 billion for the H1. This was primarily due to the significant fall in natural gas prices in North America and lower production in North America following non-core asset disposals, offset by higher production and realized prices in the UK North Sea.
Total Power & Water revenues, excluding supplemental fuel income, increased from AED 3.5 billion last year to hit AED 4 billion in the H1 of 2012. This 14.1% YoY increase was primarily due to the contribution from Shuweihat 2, which became fully operational in the Q3 of 2011.
According to TAQA, the H1 witnessed a strong performance by its power & water business which grew revenues by 14% during the period largely due to new production coming online at the Shuweihat 2 Independent Water and Power Project in Abu Dhabi.
Operations in the UK North Sea also performed strongly both operationally and financially, benefitting from higher production and oil prices. However, the continued weakness of North American gas prices has impacted the overall performance of the oil and gas business.
The Abu Dhabi energy giant said that it had benefitted from its disposal of non core assets such as its holding in Tesla Motors and non-core acreage in North America which has boosted profitability.
Mr Carl Sheldon CEO of TAQA said that “We have seen a strong performance by our power and water business with new capacity at Shuweihat 2 coming online and high availability across our portfolio supporting this. We have also seen our UK energy operations boost production and continue to benefit from higher pricing. Particularly, pleasing is that we have passed our 1,000th day as duty holder of our North Sea assets and more than 100 million barrels of oil have now safely passed through the Brent Pipeline System under our operatorship.”
Mr Sheldon said that “However, it is clear that the first half has been a challenging period for the global economy a fact that can be clearly seen in falling global commodity prices. North American gas prices have continued to weaken with Henry Hub prices reaching a 10 year low in February 2012. Prices have since recovered somewhat but overall gas price weakness has had a significant impact on our North American performance. More positively, we have seen our expansion plans at Jorf Lasfar plant in Morocco continuing on time and on budget, and that combined with the start of construction of Bergermeer Gas Storage, the acquisition of power assets in Iraq and additional acreage in the UK North Sea, we are positioned well for future growth.”
Source - Trade Arabia
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