KUALA LUMPUR: Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) posts a resilient first half of 2022 on the back of five per cent growth in electricity demand year-on-year in line with continued post-pandemic economic growth, president and chief executive officer Datuk Indera Baharin Din.
Baharin expects a reasonable performance this year while remaining cautious on the prolonged impact of high fuel price and customers' credit risk outlook.
"Group revenue without cost recovery of the Imbalance Cost Pass-Through (ICPT) for the period increased by 4.4 per cent to RM24.99 billion from RM23.93 billion," he told analysts today following results announcement on Tuesday.
TNB's net profit rose to RM872.2 million in the second quarter (Q2) ended June 30, 2022 from RM821.5 million in the same period last year.
Revenue for the quarter under review rose 53.8 per cent YoY to RM19.14 billion from RM12.44 billion in Q2 last year.
For the first six months, the company's net profit slipped 0.8 per cent YoY to RM1.77 billion from RM1.78 billion.
Revenue for the period rose to RM34.8 billion from RM24 billion last year as Baharin attributed the higher revenue to the increase in TNB sales of electricity in all sectors, consistent with the overall improvement of Malaysia's GDP of 6.9 per cent YoY.
"Our financials reflect our solid technical performance as our network remains robust with a System Minutes of 0.01 and a System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) of 22.01 minutes, which is better than our internal performance thresholds," he added.
He noted that the recent announcement on a RM5.8 billion payment and a RM6 billion government guarantee loan facility showed a concerted effort by the government and TNB in addressing the high fuel price situation.
On the substantial growth in receivables due to ICPT in 1H22, he said TNB had taken proactive measures to manage working capital.
"These include fulfilling our obligations to our suppliers and vendors through continuous cash flow monitoring and successfully raising additional borrowings when required."We remained prudent in our working capital management and expect our credit rating to remain stable.
"We also improved our collection with an average collection rate of 98 per cent for the first half as compared to 92 per cent last year," he said.