UK nuclear generator British Energy has published its half year results for 2005-06 for the period ended 2 October 2005 showing an improved performance.
This comes despite the continued outages that have forced the company to announce its operational performance will limit output to less than 61TWh this financial year with extensive inspections at Hartlepool and Heysham 1 and the need to replace the generator stator on one unit at Hartlepool. Chief executive Bill Coley said: "We are disappointed with the recent outages at Hartlepool and Heysham 1 which have impacted our projection of output for the year, but see continuing improvements in operating metrics as a result of our performance improvement programme" adding that the company’s prime focus continues to remain on improving operational reliability. Nuclear output for the financial year 2006-07 is expected to be around 63TWh.
Nonetheless, operating profit for the half came in at of £135 million ($239 million) on earnings before interest and taxes of £227 million ($401 million).
The results, says BE, reflect the benefit of higher electricity prices with an operating margin of £3.9/MWh ($6.9/MWh) at contracted summer prices and a total output for the half of 33.1TWh of which nuclear delivered 30.6 TWh at a 72% load factor.
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