JERA's April-June profit halves, Taketoyo plant remains shut
By Yuka Obayashi
TOKYO, July 31 (Reuters) -Japan's biggest power generator JERA said on Wednesday its April-June net profit nearly halved on smaller gains from a time-lag effect in a fuel price adjustment mechanism, and stuck to its annual forecast even though its Taketoyo coal-fired power plant remains shut.
The 1,070-megawatt (MW) Taketoyo power station in Aichi prefecture in central Japan has been shut since it was hit by a fire on Jan. 31.
JERA, an unlisted company jointly owned by Tokyo Electric Power 9501.T and Chubu Electric Power 9502.T, reported 93.4 billion yen ($619 million) in profit for the April-June quarter, down 48% from the year-ago period.
The fall in profit showed the impact of a drop in the time-lag gain - when a change in fuel prices is reflected in sale prices with a delay - which shrank to 20.3 billion yen in the quarter from 155.3 billion yen a year earlier.
JERA, Japan's biggest buyer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), said, its profit excluding the time-lag effects increased to 73 billion yen from 23.1 billion yen a year earlier, due to improved competitiveness in procuring LNG and thermal coal.
"We always make an effort to purchase fuels at lower prices... but last year, some deals where we tried to fix coal prices backfired. We've made improvements this year," JERA's executive officer, Naohiro Maekawa, told a news conference.
Asked about the timing of restarting Taketoyo plant, Maekawa said no date has been set yet.
The Taketoyo shutdown is expected to have a negative impact of several tens of billions of yen for the full-year due to the use of alternative fuels such as LNG, but this estimate has been factored into the annual forecast, he said.
For the year ending in March 2025, JERA maintained its annual forecast of 200 billion yen profit.
($1 = 150.7700 yen)
Reporting by Yuka Obayashi. Editing by Jane Merriman
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