February 14 (SeeNews) - Romanian power grid operator Transelectrica [BSE:TEL] reported on Friday a net profit of 104 million lei ($24 million/22 million euro) for 2019, up 28% year-on-year.
The positive financial results were driven in part by lower operational costs, Transelectrica said in a filing to the Bucharest Stock Exchange, BVB.
Total operational expenses fell by 13% year-on-year in 2019 to 2.27 billion lei.
Total revenues edged up by an annual 12% to 2.4 billion lei last year, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) fell by 2% to 407 million lei.
"2019 was a difficult year characterised by high costs of transmission system operation, especially the costs for electricity procurement to compensate technical grid losses (OTC) significantly higher by 12%, when in physical terms technical losses were smaller compared to last year," Transelectrica said.
Electricity production fell by an 8% to 56TWh, as consumption edged down by 1% on the year to 57.5 TWh in the review period. Net electricity exports in 2019 were down by 25% on the year to 4 TWh.
The Romanian finance ministry owns some 59% of Transelectrica.
Transelectrica shares traded 0.49% higher at 20.4 lei as at 1051 CET on Friday on the BVB.
(1 euro=4.7646 lei)