Saudi Electricity Company Posts Slight Drop In Q3 Net Profit

Saudi Electricity Company posted a one per cent fall in third-quarter net profit, missing analysts’ forecasts, as its power generation capacity increased.

Profit fell to SAR2.853 billion ($761 million) in the three months ended Sept. 30, from SAR2.875 billion in the same period a year earlier, the utility said in a bourse statement on Sunday.

Two analysts polled by Reuters had forecast SEC would have profits of more than SAR2.9 billion.

Operational income dipped three per cent to SAR2.74 billion.

SEC’s long-serving chief executive, Ali bin Saleh Al-Barrak, resigned in August and was replaced with Ziad bin Mohammed al-Shiha, who had served as a manager at state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco and called for efforts to make power generation more efficient.

Also in August, the company signed a contract with South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. (HHI) for construction of a SAR12.2 billion power plant in Shuqaiq.

SEC’s results are highly seasonal due to the wide variation between summer and winter electricity demand.