SSE share price: Utility updates on recent trading
SSE (LON:SSE) has updated investors on its quarterly performance this morning.
**Highlights from the company statement:**
Alistair Phillips-Davies, Chief Executive of SSE, said:
“SSE has made a solid start to the financial year with continued focus on operational efficiency, putting our customers at the heart of everything we do and progressing long-term investments in the UK’s and Ireland’s energy infrastructure, including significant progress with the Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm and the new Caithness-Moray electricity transmission link.
“The external operating environment continues to have an impact on SSE. Whilst the publication of the final remedies by the CMA brings clarity, it does constitute a considerable package of reforms to be implemented into the fast changing energy supply market. The outcome of the UK’s referendum on membership of the EU could lead to aspects of the financial, regulatory and political environment becoming more uncertain in the years ahead.
“Nonetheless, SSE’s balanced range of energy businesses and strategic focus on the delivery of efficient operations and investments, and meeting the needs of our customers, means that we remain well placed to fulfil both our core purpose, of providing energy people need in a reliable and sustainable way, and our financial objectives in the years ahead.”
Business-by-business operational performance
Efficient operations are at the core of SSE’s strategic framework. Operational performance in the three months to 30 June 2016 (comparisons with the same three months in 2015, unless otherwise stated) included:
· Safety: Total Recordable Injury Rate for employees and employees of other companies working on SSE sites was 0.26 per 100,000 hours worked, compared with 0.20 on a rolling 12 month basis;
· Wholesale: total electricity output from gas- and oil-fired power stations was 4.40TWh, compared with 2.42TWh; Fiddler’s Ferry coal-fired power station did not produce any electricity due to market conditions (coal-fired power stations produced 0.41TWh in the same three months in 2015);
· Wholesale: total electricity output from renewable sources (conventional and pumped storage hydro electric schemes, onshore and offshore wind farms and dedicated biomass plant) was 1.51TWh, compared with 2.20 TWh reflecting differences in weather between the two periods;
· Wholesale: total output from gas production assets was 158 million therms (2.56 MMboe) of gas and 0.20 MMboe of liquids, compared with 115 million therms (1.87 MMboe) and negligible liquids, as a result of the Greater Laggan Area assets coming on-line in February 2016;
· Networks: the number of Customer Minutes Lost in the Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution area was 16, compared to 13; in the Southern Electric Power Distribution area it was 10, the same as the previous year;
· Networks: the number of Customer Interruptions (power cuts) per 100 customers in the Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution area was 14, compared with 18; in the Southern Electric Power Distribution area, it was 11, the same as the previous year;
· Retail: SSE’s number of electricity and gas customer accounts in markets in Great Britain and Ireland fell from 8.21 million on 31 March 2016 to 8.16 million; its number of home services customer accounts grew from 400,000 to 416,000 in the same period; and
· Retail: average consumption of electricity by SSE’s household customers in Great Britain was estimated to be 821 kWh, compared with 822 kWh; average consumption of gas by SSE’s household customers in Great Britain was estimated to be 78 therms, compared with 75 therms.
As of 07:37 BST, Thursday, 21 July, SSE PLC share price is 1,625.00p.
