ENN Energy Holdings, the Chinese city-gas company and owner of the Zhoushan LNG import terminal in eastern Zhejiang province, reported a jump in annual profits and increased retail gas sales.
ENN posted annual revenues of 70.18 billion yuan (US$9.9Bln) a 15.6 percent increase on the 60.69Bln yuan US$8.58Bln) of income recorded in the previous year.
Sales jump
“The increase was mainly driven by the robust growth of natural gas sales, the integrated energy business and value added activities,” said ENN.
The company said its profits from pipeline natural gas, city-gas supplies and a growing gas-fuel business for vehicles increased by 18 percent to 5.27Bln yuan (US$746 million) from 4.47Bln (US$632M) during the year.
ENN, which is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, said profits attributable to owners of the company doubled to 5.6Bln yuan (US$802 million) from 2.81Bln yuan (US$398M) the previous year.
“The surge in net profit was attributable to the strong growth of the group’s core businesses mentioned above and the improvement of its operating efficiency,” explained ENN.
“In addition to that, oil price movements also led to a large fair value change of the derivative contracts which were used to hedge the group’s long-term liquefied natural gas contracts,” it added.
ENN’s retail natural gas sales volumes rose 14.7 percent in the year to 19.92 Bcm cubic metres, the equivalent of almost 15 million tonnes of LNG, from 17.37 Bcm the previous year.
At year-end ENN had a total of 217 city-gas franchises spanning 22 provinces and added 30 more during the year.
“The Group upheld its customer-oriented philosophy, dug deep into the existing customer base and explored new customers with potential demand,” said ENN.
“Most of the ENN’s franchises are located in key areas of air pollution prevention and control, including Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, where local governments strictly implement environmental protection policies,” it explained.
ENN said it took advantage of strategic positioning of its Zhoushan LNG import terminal to expand its wholesale and retail gas businesses.
“We distributed LNG to downstream customers such as small-scale gas distributors and retail gas users outside its city-gas concessions, to LNG refuelling stations and to power plants,” added ENN.
The company said that its final dividend per ordinary share would be 43.3 percent higher than the previous year at HK$1.67 (US$0.21) versus HK$1.19 (US$0.15) in 2018.
