Earnings Labs

Central Puerto S.A. (CEPU)

Q2 2019 Earnings Call· Tue, Aug 13, 2019

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Central Puerto Conference Call following the results announcement for the quarter ended on June 30, 2019. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions]. After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. If you do not have a copy of the press release, please refer to the investor support section on the company's corporate website at www.centralpuerto.com. A replay of today's call may be accessed by accessing the webcast in the investor support section of the Central Puerto corporate website. Before we proceed, please note that certain statements made by the company during this conference call are forward looking statements and we refer you to the Forward-Looking Statements section of our earnings release and recent filings with the SEC. Central Puerto assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required under applicable securities laws. In addition, all financial figures were prepared in accordance with IFRS and are stated in Argentinean pesos unless otherwise noted. On the call from Central Puerto is the Jorge Rauber, Chief Executive Officer; Fernando Bonnet, Chief Financial Officer; [indiscernible], Corporate Finance Manager; and Tomás Daghlian, Investor Relations Officer. And now, I will turn the call over to Jorge Rauber. Mr. Rauber you may begin.

Jorge Rauber

Chief Executive Officer

Thank you. We are joining here today with our team from Buenos Aires, Argentina to report on results of the second quarter 2019 and to answer any questions you may have regarding the current situation. Yesterday was a difficult time for our company and the Argentinean stock market in general. We want to ensure you that our team is closely looking at the situation in order to mitigate any impact from the recent events. That said, I will refer first to the operating figures of the quarter and then continue with some recent news regarding Central Puerto. Finally, Tomás will analyze the financial results. During the second quarter, we generated 3.3 terawatt hours of electricity, a 4% increase as compared to the same quarter 2018. This increase was mainly due to 16% increase in thermal generation which in the second quarter 2018 was affected by the maintenance of our Central Puerto Combined Cycle and 147 gigawatt hour of additional energy from the wind farms Achiras and La Castellana, which started operating during the third quarter 2018. This increase was partially offset by a 36% decrease in energy generation from hydro power plants due to less waterflow. For the general market, electricity generation during the quarter decreased 9.1% compared to the same period of the previous year according to CAMMESA mainly due to a decrease in the demand by residential and industrial customers. Our thermal units reached 92% availability in the period, increasing 13 percentage point from the level of time during the second quarter 2018. As a comparison, the average availability of the thermal units during the second quarter 2019 was 80% according to CAMMESA. We continue with the construction of our thermal and renewable energy projects. Regarding the Luján de Cuyo we expect that the unit to start commercial…

Operator

Operator

We’ll now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. And our first question today comes from Frank McGann of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Frank McGann

Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead

I just was wondering how you are thinking about your investment program and as you’re looking at the uncertain environment here, the market itself has already been somewhat I guess soft because of a little bit of excess capacity. But I was wondering if you had any just thoughts on how the current uncertainty and perhaps your views on possible policy going forward could impact those investment plans?

Jorge Rauber

Chief Executive Officer

Okay. Thanks, Frank. I will answer this question if I can. The first thing to say is that we assume -- our expectation is that the government if changes, it’s expected will not change the regulation regarding the PPAs which are currently setting us. All our expansion planning is based on PPAs paid in dollars and we don’t expect any kind of change. Why because it’s what they did in the past, in fact they were in power for a long time and would comply with the rules regarding the PPAs. So our expansion plan, the units that we're building today, the renewable projects and the power plants, we continue basically as expected without any kind of change. Partly the regulation will change or this -- for the existing plants perhaps there is some risk of pacification. But that will just target the -- which is called the legacy capacity and not the expansion of all the units of the system. Change in regulation regarding the PPAs will have a very bad impact on the market. There are a lot of projects under construction and the changed regulation regarding this will be very bad signal for the market. And we don't expect them to take this kind of measure.

Frank McGann

Analyst · Bank of America. Please go ahead

Okay. If I could just follow-up. In terms of FONINVEMEM payments, is it correct to say that in the past -- since they started that plan under the Cristina government anyways, that -- and they paid all the amounts that were due at the time that, that you would not expect any change in payments that would come from remuneration from that plan?

Jorge Rauber

Chief Executive Officer

No, for sure, they created that scheme. So this -- I mean our contract was signed with them. And for the years that we were related to that kind of program, with that government they always comply with the installments. They duly paid all the amounts that were agreed. So we don't expect changes regarding this. I mean it was a project created by them. Tomás Daghlian: Yes. And -- but I think to consider regarding that is, the amount that is still unpaid is significant, the amount for the government. There is no portion. We have in our balance sheet $417 million, we have to dig it. So the remaining portion of that FONINVEMEM scheme is not relevant for the government.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. Our next question today will come from Ezequiel Fernández of CrediCorp. Please go ahead. Ezequiel Fernández : Hi, good day. This is Ezequiel Fernández from CrediCorp Capital. A couple of questions have been already addressed. Thank you. I'd like to go back to the FONINVEMEM receivable. If you could give us a little bit more color on what is the legal structure of the agreement, it's a contract between private parties. Any sense of what could make this solid would be helpful? Thank you.

Jorge Rauber

Chief Executive Officer

It’s basically -- I think Ezequiel, it's basically agreement between the government and private generators in order to invest account receivables which were outstanding at that time. So it's basically this. I mean after that it was implemented through a trust but it's basically agreement between the government and the private generators signed by I mean the administration which was previous to Mauricio, the Cristina administration. Ezequiel Fernández : Thank you. Yes, I'm more or less aware of the layers of history with the FONINVEMEM. But I wanted to know if the contract is precisely with the federal government or being with CAMMESA side, can we see a contract with -- between private entities or not?

Jorge Rauber

Chief Executive Officer

I mean our agreement is directly with the government. After that it was implemented through an agreement, a contract between trust and CAMMESA in order just to collect the money that after that is sent to pay us. But our agreement is with the government.

Operator

Operator

[Operator instructions]. We have a question from Arthur Byrnes of Deltec Asset Management. Please go ahead.

Arthur Byrnes

Analyst · Deltec Asset Management. Please go ahead

I wanted to ask a question. Assuming your revenues continue to be honored going forward, does the 20 odd percent devaluation of the currency affect in any way your ability to repay debt?

Jorge Rauber

Chief Executive Officer

No, because our debt is very small in comparison with our revenues today. We are below 1.5, yes, 1.4 times EBITDA. So we don't see any problem to repay our debt. Tomás Daghlian: And we expect that for next year 65% of our EBITDA will come from the PPA contracts which are not subject to changes in there for us and the currency in which they are fit. So we think that we are in a good position and beside we have the 20 million in cash flow.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude our question-and-answer session. At this time, I’d like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Rauber for closing remarks.

Jorge Rauber

Chief Executive Officer

Thank you to everyone and for your interest in Central Puerto. We encourage you to call us at anytime for any information that you may need. Thank you and have a good afternoon.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded. And we thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.