Imagine someone falling down from the Niagara falls. Now use the "fall" as a metaphorical discrepancy between the financial performance of a company from one year to another. Such a steep fall can be transcended to the finances of the Kozloduy Nuclear power plant - Bulgaria's only nuclear plant - in the past couple of months. The fall would not be as great and we would not make such brave conclusions if the finances of the nuclear plant were not getting compared to the same period of 2022, which literally gilded the state energy enterprises. For the January-June period, the nuclear power plant reports five times smaller net profit - from BGN 307 million compared to the colossal BGN 1.6 billion a year earlier. Its current cash balances are BGN 656 million while they were BGN 738.7 million last year's same period, according to the company's financial report.
The main reason for such an outcome is lower electricity prices on the energy exchange - the average price in the first half of 2023 marked a drop by 51% to BGN 163.86/MWh compared to the same period of last year.
Another factor for the financial drought of the Kozloduy NPP are the contributions made towards the Security of the electric power system fund ( state fund that takes excessive profits and keeps them as a buffer or to subsidize household consumers). This year the entity contributed BGN 293.6 million, while last year the staggering sum transferred was a record of BGN 3.4 billion.
Revenue is 50% down
The company's operating income for the first half of the year amounted to BGN 1.2 billion, which is more than 50% less than the reported BGN 2.7 billion for the first half of 2022, the report also shows. The plant's production and sale of electricity is a major share in the business model, therefore the sharp drop in prices has had a direct impact.
The negative outcome was already evident in the report for the first quarter, when it turned out that with the same amount of electricity produced (4.6 million MWh) compared to the same period last year. revenues shrank twice.
The company points out that they promptly took measures to minimize the consequences of the highly volatile prices on the spot markets by redistributing electricity quantities in the "bilateral contracts" segment.
Costs are rising
And while revenues and profits are sharply decreasing, the expenses of the Kozloduy NPP are growing by 12% compared to the first half of 2022. This is mainly the result of the BGN 293.6 million earmarked contributions to the "Security of the Electricity System" fund. The measure covered the period December 2022 - June 2023, the company's experts explain.
The total amount of liabilities fell to BGN 684.6 million compared to BGN 862.8 million a year earlier. The difference comes from the reduction of the trade and other liabilities column, which are now BGN 140.1 million compared to BGN 432 million for the same period last year. There is also a decrease in the obligations for the retirement income of the staff, which decreased to BGN 26.6 million (from BGN 33.9 million a year earlier).
Imagine someone falling down from the Niagara falls. Now use the "fall" as a metaphorical discrepancy between the financial performance of a company from one year to another. Such a steep fall can be transcended to the finances of the Kozloduy Nuclear power plant - Bulgaria's only nuclear plant - in the past couple of months. The fall would not be as great and we would not make such brave conclusions if the finances of the nuclear plant were not getting compared to the same period of 2022, which literally gilded the state energy enterprises. For the January-June period, the nuclear power plant reports five times smaller net profit - from BGN 307 million compared to the colossal BGN 1.6 billion a year earlier. Its current cash balances are BGN 656 million while they were BGN 738.7 million last year's same period, according to the company's financial report.
The main reason for such an outcome is lower electricity prices on the energy exchange - the average price in the first half of 2023 marked a drop by 51% to BGN 163.86/MWh compared to the same period of last year.
