| LONDON (Reuters) - Rising power prices helped to
cement a first-half profit at British Energy Group (BGY.L:
following January's financial restructuring, the country's biggest
electricity producer said on Tuesday. The generator, which runs
eight nuclear power stations and one coal plant across the country,
said it realised a price of 25.0 pounds per megawatt hour (MWh) during
its first half, up from 24.7 pounds/MWh in its first quarter.
"We continued to deliver good financial performance through the
half year benefiting from higher electricity prices," Chief Executive
Bill Coley said in a statement.
British Energy said earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and
amortisation (EBITDA) were 106 million pounds in its second quarter to
October 2, putting first-half EBITDA at 227 million pounds.
Total output for the half year was 33.1 terawatt hours (TWh)
(nuclear 30.6 TWh and coal 2.5 TWh), up from 31.7 TWh last year
2004/05 (nuclear 28.7 TWh, coal 3.0 TWh).
British Energy, which recently cut its forecast for nuclear output
in 2005/06 to 61 TWh from 63 TWh due to unplanned outages, said its
nuclear output in 2006/07 would be around 63 TWh.
Its shares were unchanged at 490 pence in early trading.
British Energy relisted its shares in January after a
debt-for-equity swap which wiped 1 billion pounds debt off its balance
sheet and transferred nuclear liabilities, including certain
decommissioning costs, to the government.
British Energy has a total capacity of 12,000 megawatts -- 10,000
from nuclear and 2,000 from its Eggborough coal-fired power station.
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