CESC Q3 net flat, fuel linkage with CIL soon

Power major CESC Ltd today reported almost flat standalone net profit at Rs 112 crore for the third quarter ended December and is expecting to sign a fuel linkage agreement with Coal India soon.
"Profit did not rise due to unchanged tariff and rise in costs. The demand for power remained robust," CESC chairman Sanjiv Goenka said here today.
The company has posted a net profit of Rs 112 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2015, as compared to Rs 111 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2014.
Total income of the company increased from Rs 1,270 crore for the quarter ended December 2014 to Rs 1,581 crore for the quarter ended December 2015, the company reported.

Despite lower fuel cost, total expenditure of CESC during Oct-Dec period went up by 28.9 per cent on year to Rs 1,329 crore mainly due to increase in other expenses and wage cost, Goenka said.
CESC got a new tariff order from WBERC (West Bengal Electricity Regulatory Commission) during the July-September quarter and it was kept unchanged at Rs 6.97 per unit on an average, Goenka said.

Growth prospects of CESC's power business have improved following a fuel supply agreement with Coal India Ltd for its Chandrapura plant.
"Coal linkage committee has cleared and in a few weeks we expect to get coal from Coal India which will impact the bottom line of the plant significantly. This will help Chandrapur plant to break-even in the next six months," Goenka said.

Chandrapura plant is running with imported coal making power costlier than domestic Coal India coal.
It is also running at 50 per cent of capacity at best due to lack of PPA of 300 MW out of 600 MW capacity, Goenka said but did not reveal the loss in Chandrapura plant.
The Chandrapur plant has already power purchase agreement in place for 300 MW of power and it is looking to tie up the remaining 300 MW in the next financial year (2016-17), he added.