H1 2020 results of Russia’s leading energy companies

This July, the country’s major energy companies released the operating and financial results of their activities for the first half of the year.

Practically all the leading companies operating in the standard heat generation sector noted reduced volumes of electricity and heat production in H1 2020 compared to the indicators for the same period in 2019. Volumes were down by 0.3–22% and 4–12.4%, respectively. This was due to the following factors:

• Higher temperatures in the period from January to June 2020, which resulted in households consuming less heat;
• An overall decline in energy consumption amid the reduction in economic activity caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the restrictions and quarantine regime that followed;
• The OPEC+ agreement on oil production cuts signed in Q2 2020, which resulted in lower electricity consumption by oil sector companies;
• Reduced electricity supplies along the Finland and Lithuania routes (with regard to Inter RAO Group).

Table. Dynamics of operating and financial indicators for H1 2020 vs. results for the same period in 2019

* Revenues received for electricity and capacity in the Russian wholesale electricity and capacity market.
Sources: data provided by the companies, public sources, ACRA
Note: ACRA employed the following approaches to make the companies’ indicators comparable: for Inter RAO Group only data for the Russian segment was used; for RusHydro PJSC only data for hydroelectric and hydroelectric pumped storage power plants was used, excluding Boguchanskaya HPP; for Siberian Generating Company LLC data does not take into account the indicators of Reftinskaya GRES.

The decline in generation of electricity and heat had a negative impact on the revenues of generating companies, with this indicator falling by 7–13% compared to the first half of last year. The warm weather factor mainly influences the operation of cogeneration power plants because the production of electricity has to decrease in the event of a reduction in heat load. At the same time, a high water level and the corresponding high loading of hydroelectric power plants leads to reduced utilization of thermal generation capacities and lower operating results in this segment.

Reduced volumes of electricity consumption in the Unified Power System of Russia (-3.1% in January–June 2020 compared to the same period last year) and the priority loading of HPPs led to prices falling in the “day in advance” market by 10% on average, which also affected the revenues of generating companies.

Let’s look at the situation in terms of specific representatives of the sector. The fall in electricity generation at TGK-1 PJSC only amounted to 0.3% year-on-year due to the diverse nature of its production capacities, which are almost equally split between thermal and hydroelectric power plants. Due to this, indicators moved in different directions: electricity production at the company’s thermal power plants declined by 11.7%, while the volume of production at its hydroelectric power plants increased by 17.8% as a result of the high level of water in the company’s regions of presence.

Given the high water level factor, RusHydro PJSC’s results for the first half of the year were strong, as expected: generation at the company’s hydroelectric power plants increased by 32% and revenues grew by 18%. Significant changes did not take place in the atomic power segment in terms of production volume in the reporting period (growth amounted to a mere 0.66%) due to the specific nature of atomic power plants.

Taking into account the expected growth of electricity consumption in June and July this year related to the end of quarantine measures and the gradual revival of the economy, the total volume of electricity consumption should be 2.72–5.87% lower in 2020. As a result, the decline in revenues of thermal power plants should amount to 10–15% on average, while the revenue of hydroelectric power plants should increase by approximately the same percentage.