OPG Power Ventures (LON:OPG) said it remains on track to meet market expectations despite the impact of the floods in Chennai.
The company told investors power off-take and operating levels are now back to normal levels in the southern Indian city, which was hit by serious flooding in December 2015.
OPG estimated the Chennai floods cost it around £1.7mln in pre-tax profitability, but its assets remained fully available throughout the flooding and, most importantly, the company said, none of its people were hurt.
In the final three months of 2015 – the third quarter of OPG's financial year – output at the 414 megawatt (MW) Chennai plant totalled 537mln kilowatt hours (kWh), down from 589mln kWh in the preceding quarter but up from 484mln kWh in the corresponding quarter of 2014.
At the 300 MW Gujarat plant, output rose to 282mln kWh from 182mln kWh in the preceding quarter.
For the first nine months of the financial year, combined output from the two plants was 2,215mln kWh, compared to 1,387mln kWh in the same period of the previous year when the company had just the Chennai plant in operation.
The second 150 MW unit at Gujarat commenced operations on 30 January 2016, concluding a near tripling of OPG's operating capacity from 270 MW just a year ago.
OPG said its strategy of switching Chennai's supply directly to industrial customers has led to a significant acceleration of its cash collections. At its other plant, the company has received permission to access customers in certain states outside of Gujarat, which will help offset the effects of lower prevailing tariffs in Gujarat.
The Indian Rupee moved in the range of 64 to 67 to the US dollar during the reporting period while the delivered unit cost of imported coal during the same period fell more or less in line with the relevant coal index, OPG revealed.
"I stated at the interim results that our priorities were led by the maximisation of our assets and this continues to be the case. With the Indian economic outlook improving, with subdued fuel costs and key sector reforms being implemented, we remain positive about our long term growth outlook," said Arvind Gupta, chief executive officer of OPG.
Shares were up half a penny at 76p in the first half hour of trading.