JOHANNESBURG, Nov 28 (Reuters) – South African state power utility Eskom said on Friday that it expected this year’s profit to be similar to last year’s, after a strong first six months helped by higher tariffs and lower finance costs.<\/p>\n
Eskom made 16 billion rand of profit after tax last year, its first full-year profit<\/a> in eight years, after a steep reduction in the recurring electricity blackouts that have held back Africa’s biggest economy for more than a decade.<\/p>\n Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n The rebound in its financial results has been underpinned by a multi-year government bailout and a sharp turnaround in the performance of its coal-fired power stations.<\/p>\n It made profit after tax of 24.3 billion rand ($1.4 billion) in the first half of its current financial year, which coincided with the southern hemisphere winter months when Eskom sells more power and does less plant maintenance.<\/p>\n Eskom said the result showed last year’s profit was not a one-off achievement.<\/p>\n In the six months to the end of September, revenue was up 4% to 191.3 billion rand, helped by a 12.7% average tariff increase.<\/p>\n Net finance costs fell 14% to 15.3 billion rand due to lower interest rates and levels of debt. But the money it is owed by struggling municipalities rose to 105 billion rand from 90.1 billion rand a year before.<\/p>\n Eskom said power cuts were only implemented on four days of the six-month period covered by its latest results. In 2023, when power cuts reached record levels, there were outages on more than 300 days of the year.<\/p>\n The former state monopoly is still the country’s dominant electricity supplier, mostly generating power from coal-fired plants though it also operates a nuclear plant and some smaller facilities that burn diesel or harness water.<\/p>\n ($1 = 17.1260 rand)<\/p>\n Reporting by Anathi Madubela; Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n
\nEditing by Alexander Winning and Emelia Sithole-Matarise<\/p>\n