KARACHI, April 27: Hub Power Company Limited (Hubco) on Wednesday announced a net profit at Rs1,276 million for the third quarter ended March 31, 2005, which translated into earning per share (eps) at Rs1.10. The Hubco board, however, did not declare any interim dividend.

The nine-month (July-March 2004-05) net profit of the company amounted to Rs3,944 million, representing eps at Rs3.41. In the same period last year, the net profit was Rs4,112 million and eps at Rs3.55. Total assets of Hubco on March 31, 2005 stood at Rs46.7 billion.

A report of the directors for the quarter annexed to the financial figures said the net profit for the comparable three months last year stood at Rs1,529 million and the variance was “mainly due to generating units outage resulting in liquidated damages and deductibles under the plant insurance”.

Turnover for the quarter under review stood at Rs4,815 million and operating costs were Rs3,101 million. The directors noted that the figures were higher than the same period last year, mainly due to the higher load factor.

Hubco owns, operates and maintains an oil-fired power station with four generating units with an installed net capacity of 1,200 mw. During the quarter under review, the power plant generated 684 GWh of electricity, resulting in a load factor of 26 per cent against a load factor of 16 per cent in the same quarter last year.

During the quarter, the power availability for customer, Wapda was high at 87 per cent.