Oz AGL Cuts Profit Guidance

Australian gas and power retailer AGL Energy has lowered its guidance for underlying profit after tax for the 12 months ending June 30, 2021 (FY2021) due to a transformer incident at its Liddell power station in New South Wales, it said on December 21.

AGL now expects profits for the year to come to between A$500mn (US$378mn) and A$580mn, down from the previous guidance range of A$560mn to A$660mn. A fire broke out on December 17 at a generator transformer at the third unit of the Liddell power station in New South Wales, during the changing of an oil cooler filter, AGL said. The transformer was damaged and the unit was shut down and is not expected to return to service until early March 2021.

AGL estimates the financial impact of this outage, including trading losses and the cost of replacing the transformer, to be A$25mn. The company said the update to its FY2021 guidance range also reflected “increasing earnings pressure arising from recent trading performance and a continued deterioration in market and operating conditions in wholesale electricity”.