NGC this morning announced net earnings of $NZ148 million for the year ending June 2003, compared with $NZ34.5 million for the previous year.
The latest results included an abnormal post-tax contribution of $NZ78.9 million from the sale of NGC's 354MW Taranaki Combined Cycle gas-fired station at Stratford last December and the small 32MW Cobb hydro station near Nelson last March.
Net earnings before abnormal items also increased, by 20.8%, from $NZ57.2 million to $NZ69.1 million, pleasing chairman Greg Martin and chief executive Phil James, who declared an unimputed final dividend of 5 cents per share to be paid on September 15, taking total dividends for the year to 9 cents per share.
Martin said it was a most pleasing result in a year characterised by the successful completion of NGC's repositioning strategy, involving its withdrawal from mass market gas retailing and electricity generation. "NGC is now fully focused on leveraging the strengths of its continuing core businesses and the skills of its people, to deliver sustainable returns to shareholders."
James said all of NGC's ongoing core businesses made a higher contribution to pre-abnormal earnings before interest and tax.
The contribution from gas trading during the year, increased by 5.9% to $NZ54.2 million, reflecting a 7.2% increase in total natural gas sales volumes and early access to prepaid gas entitlements. The higher sales volumes of 72.6 Petajoules was attributable primarily to an increase, from 6.5-17.9PJ, in sales to petrochemical customers as a result of NGC's acquisition last August of Shell New Zealand subsidiary Kapuni Gas Contracts Ltd, giving it the right to sell up to 14PJ of Kapuni gas a year to methanol manufacturer Methanex.
NGC's growing gas trading business stands in stark contrast to an industry generally preoccupied with the faltering Maui field and the company has been snaffling as much new, uncommitted gas as it can.
It recently started pumping about 1PJ a year of Westech Energy's Surrey gas to Methanex and is due to add Indo-Pacific Energy's Kahili gas from early next year. Substituting Surrey and Kahili gas for KGCL gas will free up more Kapuni gas to be treated by NGC's expanded Kapuni gas treatment plant and sold.
Faltering Maui production has also necessitated NGC (and Liquigas) importing LPG for the first time to help meet peak demand this winter.
NGC's LPG business contribution to EBIT increased by 12.9% to $NZ13.1 million, with wholesale sales by On Gas increasing by 12% to 54,611 tonnes. New Zealand's LPG market is presently growing by about 12% per annum, despite the reduced availability from Maui.
NGC's gas transmission and networks businesses together contributed $NZ61.3 million to EBIT, which was an increase of 3%. NGC added 2,731 new residential connections to its networks and laid an additional 80km of mains, with demand for gas services being particularly strong for new residential subdivisions in Taupo, Rotorua and Tauranga, and for the expanding Auckland horticulture market.
