August 15 (SeeNews) - Bosnian state-controlled power utility Elektroprivreda Republike Srpske (ERS) said it sold 1,687.7 gigawatt hours of electricity in the first half of the year, worth a total of 129.3 million marka ($74.9 million/66.1 million euro).
The company's electricity production in the January-June period amounted to 3,534.55 gigawatt hours, which is 23.69% more than planned, ERS said in a statement last week.
The company booked a non-consolidated profit of 56 million marka in the first half, while all of its production and distribution companies operated positively with the exception of coal mining and energy company RiTE Gacko.
"Through a series of measures and activities we managed to overcome the extremely difficult situation caused by poor hydrology last year, which called for the import of significant quantities of electricity causing a minus in operations and arrears towards suppliers and creditors," ERS director Radmila Cickovic said.
Cickovic explained that debt to state-owned power transmission system operator Elektroprenos BiH and the power companies in the region exceeded 30 million marka in the previous period.
In the first six months of 2018, ERS invested 75 million marka in new facilities, as well as the modernisation and rehabilitation of existing ones.
In May, Radmila Cickovic took over as acting director general of ERS, following the resignation of the management board of the power utility.
At the end of April, the supervisory board of ERS said it has accepted the resignation of the entire management board of the company. The prime minister of Bosnia's Serb Republic entity, Zeljka Cvijanovic, said earlier that the ERS board has resigned over losses which could not be accounted for.
ERS is the power utility of Bosnia's Serb Republic, one of the two autonomous entities that form Bosnia and Herzegovina. The other one is the Federation.
(1 euro=1.95583 marka)