Page 10 - AsianOil Week 05 2023

AsianOil PERFORMANCE AsianOil

Japan’s JERA sees better earnings

estimate for 2022-23 financial year

JAPAN JAPAN’S main power generation company were sold out until 2026. That created an envi-
JERA said this week that it expects better finan- ronment of fierce competition among major
Warmer weather in cial results for the 2022-23 business year. Citing East Asian LNG markets like Japan, China and
Europe has reduced the lower than expected procurement costs for fuel, South Korea.
company’s procurement JERA’s chief financial officer Tetsuo Yoshida said The milder than expected winter has pro-
costs. the joint venture company, led by Tokyo Electric vided JERA with some reprieve from its forecast
Power Co. (TEPCO) Holdings and Chubu Elec- loss, much of which was anchored to the una-
tric Power Co., now expects to see a net profit of vailability of LNG from the Texas LNG plant of
JPY100bn (around $769mn) at the end of March Freeport, where JERA is a key partner. A pipe-
2023 instead of the previously forecasted loss of line explosion and infrastructure damage last
JPY200bn made last year. June put a halt to LNG liftings. In the last week,
“We assumed a tight global LNG market dur- the four-train facility has begun to receive nat-
ing the winter, but the market has eased thanks ural gas via pipeline, but officials for the com-
to warmer weather in Europe, improving our pany said it does not expect Freeport to resume
procurement environment in terms of volume exports until after end-March this year. Freeport
and prices,” Yoshida said during a press confer- has filed a request with US regulatory authorities
ence in Tokyo. to restart operations by pumping LNG into the
The war in Ukraine has run amuck through facility’s piping system.
the global LNG market, causing prices to soar JERA said trading arm JERAGM had also
and making supplies scarce as European coun- contributed to this year’s higher income by
tries have moved to sanction Russian gas and reselling some LNG cargoes to Europe. The
focus on other sources of gas supply – namely company also cited a year-on-year increase in
LNG – as the continent geared up for winter. electricity sales.
European demand made it difficult for poor In its recent financial statement, JERA said
countries to obtain supply, but the anticipated that it plans to voluntarily adopt the Interna-
harsh winter has not materialised. tional Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)
Last November, the Japanese government in place of the existing Japan GAAP from the
revealed the extent of its worry by asking the consolidated financial statements for the annual
entirety of Japan to conserve electricity usage reporting of FY2022 for the purpose of improv-
from December 1 until March 31 in the face of ing the international comparability of financial
a global LNG shortage. At that time, the Min- information in the capital markets and enhanc-
istry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) ing communications with investors and other
said that long-term contract supplies of LNG stakeholders. ™

P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 05 04•February•2023