UK nuclear generation company British Energy has unveiled its results for the months to March following the government-backed restructuring in mid-January.
For the two-and-a-half months to the end of March, the company made a pre-exceptionals, pre-tax profit of £82 million ($142 million), largely on the back of rising wholesale energy prices.
However, annual equivalent figures show a significant fall in turnover to £482 million ($838 million) compared to £1.2 billion ($2.1 billion) the previous year.
British Energy’s sold its energy at £24/MWh ($41.7/MWh), as against £19.20/MWh ($33.4/MWh) in the previous nine months and has also contracted about 75% of its power for this year at an average £29.80/MWh ($51.8/MWh).
The company, which runs eight nuclear power stations in the UK, made a pre-tax profit of £54 million ($98 million) compared to a £357 million ($621 million) loss in the nine months to the middle of January.
The government bailed it out of some £4 billion ($6.9 billion) in nuclear liabilities, but the restructuring left existing shareholders with just 2.5% of the company after a debt-for-equity swap. Banks and bondholders also wrote off around £1.3 billion ($2.2 billion) in debt.
However, results have also been adversely affected by lower output, caused by unplanned outages at Hartlepool and Heysham stations. In the nine months to January, output totalled more than 50 TWh of which some 45.5 TWh came from nuclear generation. The latest results give a figure of 16.8 TWh in total with just 14.3 TWh coming from the nuclear portfolio.
Meanwhile, British Energy is apparently hoping to extend the life of all of its AGR plants, according to company chairman Adrian Montague. Under the current plans the company is investigating the possibility of extending the life of Dungeness-B for a further five years, although no decision has been taken yet. Others such as Heysham-B and Torness could be running until 2028 if their life is eventually extended.