Daily Times

K-Electric (KE) held its 111th annual general meeting (AGM) for FY 2021. With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the AGM was hosted virtually. The meeting was chaired by Shan Ashary – Chairman of the KE Board, with Moonis Alvi – Chief Executive Officer, KE also in attendance, along with Aamir Ghaziani – Chief Financial Officer, Rizwan Pesnani – Chief Risk Officer & Company Secretary, Rizwan Dalia – Chief People Officer, Sadia Dada – Chief Marketing & Communication Officer, among other members of the Board and KE leadership.

Shareholders were briefed about prevalent challenges such as continuous accumulation of outstanding net receivables from government entities (Rs57.6 billion on principal basis, as of June 30, 2021), and delays in determination of tariff variations which had a direct impact on company’s liquidity position and resulted in high levels of borrowing for working capital requirements.

Despite the aforementioned issues, the company remained committed and during the year invested around Rs81 billion across the power value chain. The company also continued to show strong financial performance. K-Electric declared profit of Rs11,998 million in FY 2021 as compared to a loss of Rs2,959 million during FY 2020 resulting in earning per share (EPS) of 0.43 rupees per share in FY21 as compared to loss per share of 0.11 rupees in FY20. Increase in total assets has also been observed from 703,414 million in FY20 to 835,677 million in FY21. The operational performance also remained significant as the company observed increase in units sent out by 9.6% as compared to last financial year. Furthermore, with targeted loss reduction initiatives, the company managed to reduce its T&D losses to 17.5% in FY 2021 from 19.7% in FY 2020.

Construction of the 900 MW RLNG-fired BQPS-III is being pursued on fast track basis. Successful completion of the required rehabilitation works on 220 kV KDA-Jamshoro circuit along with the implementation of cross-trip scheme enabled KE to off-take additional power of around 450-600 MW from national grid, which remained critical in managing the peak summer demand in 2021. Additionally, the projects of 500 kV KKI and 220 kV Dhabeji grids have also been initiated that will allow the company to import a total of up to 2,050 MW from the national grid; thus managing the growing power demand in KE’s service area.

KE to date has converted around 11,000 pole mounted transformers (PMTs) to aerial bundled cable (ABC). This process has enabled the company to significantly reduce its T&D losses and benefit consumers through reduction in load-shed combined with community engagement and upliftment initiatives. By virtue of these initiatives, in FY 2021, 125,000 customers were converted from hook connections to metered connection as compared to 45,000 customers in FY 2020.