PLN revenue up 3.15%

State-owned electricity firm PT PLN saw its revenue in the first semester of this year increased by 3.15 percent to Rp 104.7 trillion compared to Rp 101.5 trillion in the same period of last year.

The company said in a statement Sunday that electricity sales in the January-June period rose by 7.85 percent to 107.2 TWh from 99.4 TWh in the corresponding period of last year. It said that the higher electricity sales was in line with rising number of PLN customers from 61.2 million to 62.6 million, which increased the country?s electrification ratio to 89.5 percent at the end of June of this year, from 88.3 percent at the end of December 2015.

PLN said that in line with higher electricity production, operating cost increased by 1.66 percent to Rp 119.7 trillion, but the rise was slower than the increase in revenue, thanks to efficiency programs primarily by switching to cheaper source of fuel in electricity production such as coal from fuel oil, which is more expensive. Cost of fuel in the first semester dropped by 44.52 percent to Rp 10.4 trillion, with the company only consumed 2.2 million kilo liters of fuel oil, a decline of 0.6 million kilo liters.

PLN said that EBITDA in the first semester of this year increased to Rp 30.2 trillion from Rp 26.9 trillion. The company said that net profit in the January-June period of this year reached Rp 7.9 trillion. It did not give comparative figure.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak