May 21 (SeeNews) - Romanian majority state-owned hydro power producer Hidroelectrica said on Monday that its net profit rose by an annual 11% to 1.36 billion lei ($345 million/293 million euro) in 2017.
Electricity output in 2017 was approximately 14.04 TWh, Hidroelectrica said in a press release.
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The company posted a turnover of 3.254 billion lei in 2017 and a net profit margin of 42%, up 4 percentage points compared to the previous year.
"The radical restructuring process that Hidroelectrica went through in the last years made it the most profitable Romanian company, by posting an EBITDA of 70% from the turnover in 2017," the company said.
Hidroelectrica had 3,297 employees at end-December.
Earlier this month, the company signed a 4.4 million lei contract for the overhaul of five hydro power plants (HPPs) of 110 kW each belonging to the Ramnicu Valcea hydro-electric substation.
The works will be carried out in two stages - the design and preparation of the execution of the modernisation is scheduled to take up to six months, to be followed by the actual execution of the overhaul.
In February, the company launched an international public tender for the rehabilitation of Vidraru HPP. The estimated value of the contract to be awarded amounts to 78.98 million euro ($93.8 million), excluding VAT, to which a maximum of 1.75 million euro can be added. The works will be completed within four years and eight months after the contract award date.
Hidroelectrica operates 208 hydro power plants with a combined installed capacity of over 6,444 MW.
In April last year, Hidroelectrica exited insolvency, which paved the way for a long-awaited listing on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, seen as the biggest in Romania's history. The initial public offering (IPO) of a 15% stake in Hidroelectrica is expected to raise 1 billion euro.
The government's plans to dual-list a 15% stake in Hidroelectrica on the BVB, and on the London Stock Exchange have been repeatedly delayed as insolvency proceedings were taking longer than expected, despite the company's strong financial recovery.
(1 euro=4.6228 lei)
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