Abu Dhabi: Helped by higher oil prices, the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (Taqa) posted a robust 148 per cent increase in profits for 2018, totalling Dh396 million against Dh160 million a year ago. Revenues were up 6 per cent to Dh17.7 billion in 2018.
Oil prices rose last year on the back of production cut agreement between Opec (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) and non-Opec members like Russia, and coupled to strong demand. In early October, Brent touched a four-year high of $85 per barrel before sliding to $50 per barrel in late December. Currently, Brent crude is trading at $62 per barrel.
The other major contributor to Taqa’s bottom line was the power and water division. “Taqa’s robust strategy to maximise capabilities across a diverse portfolio of assets and activities as well as the execution of our growth plans in power and water and across all our divisions has yielded visible results,” said Saeed Hamad Al Daheri, Taqa’s CEO in a statement.
On the operational side, the power and water division had a power generation production of 89,922 gigawatt hours and 246,556 million imperial gallons of water desalination. In 2018, Taqa’s water and power plants produced 85 per cent of the power and 95 per cent of the water consumed in Abu Dhabi, according to a statement it issued to the Abu Dhabi stock market.
It also achieved an average production of 123,100 barrels of equivalent oil per day in 2018, a 2.5 per cent decrease from the previous year.
With assets in eleven countries, including Canada, India, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, the company is active in power generation, water desalination, oil and gas exploration and production, pipelines and gas storage.
