Price Cut Drives ENN H1 Gas Sales 17% Higher

One of China’s biggest natural gas distributers ENN Energy Holdings reported a 17% rise in gas sales volumes for the half year that ended on June 30 as demand jumped following November's price cut.

During the six months, its total natural gas sales volume was 6.48bn m³. Residential gas sales volume increased by a robust 23%. Higher supplies of LNG drove a significant year-on-year wholesale of gas volume growth of 95.9% to 1.02bn m³.

The 17% growth in sales volumes seen in the first six months of 2016 is half as big again as the 11.5% growth clocked in the previous fiscal year that ended on December 31, 2015.  While announcing the FY 2015 results in March, the company said it is targeting a 15% growth in gas sales volume for FY 2016. If the trend continues, FY 2016 sales growth is likely to surpass the company’s own target. 

ENN fuel station (Credit: ENN)

Revenue amounted to 15.64bn yuan ($2.35bn), down 1.6% mainly owing to the natural gas price downward adjustment, the company said on August 23. Profit after tax increased significantly by 29.3% to 1.59bn yuan. Revenue attributable to piped gas sales reached 8.67bn yuan, accounting for 55.5% of the total revenue.

ENN’s revenue attributable to vehicle gas sales amounted to 1.62bn yuan, accounting for 10.4% of the total revenue. Vehicular natural gas sales volume in China was 760mn m³, of which LNG gas sales jumped 30.9% to 320mn m³. The company constructed and put into operation 11 CNG and LNG refuelling stations during the six months, bringing the total number of stations in operation to 587. In the first half of 2016, its vehicle refuelling stations in North America generated a revenue of 78mn yuan, up 23.8% year-on-year.

Shardul Sharma