OREANDA-NEWS. Essar Energy is today publishing its interim results for the first half of fiscal year 2014 to the end of September 2013. Key points as follows:

Group current price (CP) EBITDA USD 543.7 million, down 7% on H1 FY2013 in line with analysts' consensus of USD 549 million. (Analysts focus on current price EBITDA as that gives the best indication of underlying business performance, stripping out timing differences, particularly relating to crude oil inventory gains and losses due to often volatile global oil prices.)

Pre-tax numbers under IFRS: loss of USD 498.8 million against a loss of USD 282 million in six months to September 2012. The key impacts relative to CP EBITDA were: a) the impact of timing of crude oil price volatility on inventory/stocks of USD 83m; b) foreign exchange losses of USD 483 million as the rupee depreciated sharply from Rs.54/USD to Rs.63/USD . Much of this is in practice unrealised and will be subsequently recovered through product sales.

The global refining market was very tough during the period with global industry margins falling sharply in both Asia and Europe compared with a year earlier. Essar Energy's refineries at Vadinar and Stanlow significantly outperformed the market, but were nevertheless impacted.

Vadinar refinery (Refining and marketing India):

Current price EBITDA at Vadinar rose to USD 339.4 million for H1, from USD 311.1 million in H1 FY2013.

Vadinar gross refinery margins rose 9% to USD 6.97 per barrel, against USD 6.41 per barrel in H1 FY2013. The gap between Vadinar's margins and the industry-wide Singapore benchmark margin widened significantly to USD 7.91/barrel in H1, including USD 8.23/barrel in the second quarter, which is above target range of USD 7-USD 8/barrel, with Singapore margins at negative USD 1.30/barrel in Q2.

Further enhancement work under way through “Project Optima Plus” - to add a further USD 1.50/barrel to margins over next three years, with annual throughput expected of around 143 million barrels.

Stanlow refinery (Refining and marketing UK):

Current price EBITDA at Stanlow fell to USD 65.2 million from USD 197.2 million a year earlier. Gross refinery margins fell to USD 5.03 per barrel against USD 8.03/barrel in H1 FY2013. This was nevertheless well above industry-wide North West Europe benchmark margins of USD 1.85/barrel.

Major maintenance turnaround at Stanlow now almost completed, including debottlenecking of some units to help margin improvement initiatives and USD 30m relifing of residue catalytic cracking unit, a key gasoline production unit.

Production at Stanlow in second half of FY2014 to be reduced by damage to a furnace in latter stages of maintenance - full year total now expected to be around 59 million barrels, against 67 million barrels previously expected.

Power business:

EBITDA rose 59% to USD 147 million from USD 93 million in H1 FY2013 as new generation projects at Vadinar P2 (510MW) came on stream and generation at Salaya (1,200MW) increased. Total current generation fleet of 3,910MW.

Total generation rose 45% to 5,672 million units in H1 from 3,911MU in H1 FY2013.

Debt

Essar Energy total net debt fell 2.6% to USD 6.56 billion, helped by the depreciation of the rupee against the dollar.

Refinancing of USD 870 million of Essar Oil India Rupee debt into dollars so far, cutting interest bill at the rate of USD 6m for every USD 100m refinanced. Intending to increase this to over USD 2 billion dollarized.