PETALING JAYA: Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) remains cautious on the prolonged increase in coal price and impact from increased customers’ credit risk outlook, although it foresees a reasonable performance for the year 2022 with the implementation of the Regulatory Period 3, effective from Feb 1.

       In a filing with Bursa Malaysia, the group said for its first quarter ended March 31, 2022 (1Q22), it saw resilient performance underpinned by electricity demand growth of 4%, consistent with the overall improvement of Malaysia’s gross domestic product of 5% year-on-year.

       However, the first quarter also saw the group continuing to face challenges arising from the global increase in coal price and increase in customer’s credit risk.

       “On-going risks to growth remain, in particular on the expectation of higher core inflation arising from global commodity price surge amid heighten geopolitical conflicts and the on-going Russia Ukraine conflict could have an impact on the country’s economic growth,” said TNB.

       For 1Q22, the group’s revenue grew 36.4% year-on-year to RM15.658bil while net profit dropped 6.84% year-on-year to RM893.1mil.

       Earnings per share was 15.6 sen (versus 16.81 sen a year earlier).

       TNB said the jump in 1Q22 revenue was mainly due to the under-recovery position of imbalance cost pass-through (ICPT) of RM3.5bil, compared an over-recovery position of RM327.3mil a year earlier.

       For 1Q22, operating expenses rose by 46.9% to RM13.43bil mainly due to higher fuel price which was passed through the ICPT.

       However, the operating profit saw a slight increase of RM41.8mil or 1.8% due to lower net loss on impairment of financial instruments. Profit after taxation was lower by 10.5% or RM102.3mil, mainly due to higher tax expenses.