Hubco's Narowal Plant engines develop fault, electricity generation halted

Hub Power Company Ltd (HUBCO) in its notice to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Friday informed that its two engines at Narowal Energy Plant developed fault and are unavailable for electricity generation.

“The alternators of two engines at Narowal Plant have developed a fault due to which these engines having 38 MW capacity will not be available for electricity generation and have been placed under forced outages to investigate and fix the fault,” read the statement.

Narowal Plant is owned and operated by Narowal Energy Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Hub Power Company Limited, and has a gross capacity of 225 MW comprising of eleven reciprocating engines and one steam turbine.

The Hub Power Company Limited (HUBCO) has a combined installed power generation capacity of 2,921MW.

HUBCO has four projects listed in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), including imported coal-based China Power Hub Generation Company (Private) Limited (CPHGC) at Hub, Thar Energy Limited (TEL), ThalNova Power Thar (Pvt.) Ltd. and Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) at Thar Coal Block II.

As per HUBCO annual report for 2021, the consolidated net profit during the year under review is Rs33,688 million, resulting in earnings per share of Rs25.97 compared to net profit of Rs25,044 million and earnings per share of Rs19.31 last year.

The increase in profits is mainly due to higher share of profit from an associate (China Power Hub Power Generation Company Limited, which started Commercial Operations on August 17, 2019), depreciation of Rupee against USD and lower financing cost partly offset by higher taxes on income from management services.