France's Engie posted Ebitda of Eur7.689 million in the first nine month of 2016, falling by 2% year on year.
Revenues in the same period were down 10.3% at 47.514 million, while operating income was up 6.6% at Eur4.441 million.
Ebitda for the first 9 months benefitted from the positive impact of the restart of the Doel 3, Tihange 2 and Doel 1 nuclear power plants in Belgium at the end of December 2015, the effects of the Lean 2018 performance plan and the impact of commissioning of new assets and the tariffs increases in infrastructures, the company said.
“Nevertheless, these positive items were offset by an unfavorable scope effect, an unfavorable exchange rate effect notably related to the Brazilian real, negative price impacts for merchant activities and the temperature impact in France less positive than on the first 9 months of 2015” it added.
More specifically, the company said Ebitda for the international segments, North America, Latin America and Africa/Asia “was down due to unfavorable price effects, with lower margins in the United States, Brazil, Chile, Singapore and Australia, but also due to lower performance of coal assets in Australia and positive one-off impacts in 2015 in the Middle East and Thailand.” These impacts were partially offset by the good performance of gas and power sales to residential and commercial and industrial (C&I) customers in the US, by the improved volumes sold in Peru, the Mayakan gas pipeline extension in Mexico and non-recurring positive effects in Indonesia, it explained.
Ebitda for the segment France grew “slightly organically driven notably by the good performance of renewable power generation business, higher electricity volumes sold to I&C and residential customers and by a good monitoring of costs.” These effects are partly compensated by the decrease in prices and volumes on gas supply to professional customers, Engie said.
Ebitda for the segment Europe - excluding France and Benelux - “was up sharply.” “This evolution is mainly driven by an improved performance of energy retail business in Italy, despite a negative temperature impact and by the services activities in the United Kingdom”, it said, although the improvement was partly compensated by lower gas distribution tariffs in Romania.
Ebitda for the segment Infrastructures remained stable, as the positive effects from 2015 and 2016 annual tariff revisions for Transmission and Distribution were compensated by lower volumes sold at a lower average price by gas storage subsidiary Storengy on the back of low summer/winter spreads compared to 2015.
Ebitda of segment Global Energy Management & Global LNG declined compared to end of September 2015, “mainly due to more important gas supply contracts renegotiations in 2015 than in 2016 and to the sharp fall in LNG trading margins, particularly with shipments from Yemen halted as from April 2015” the company pointed out.
Developments over the period include “several projects won in solar” including 140 MW and 75 MW projects in India, 180 MW in Mexico and 40 MW in Peru; the acquisition in France of 100% of Maia Eolis “which reinforces Engie’s leadership position in wind” and an agreement on the price revision of long-term gas supply contracts with Gazprom, Engie said.