Orsted, the new pure play renewables firm formerly known as DONG, has witnessed third quarter profits from continuing operations plummet by 92% year-on-year.
However profit from discontinued operations – including the divested oil and gas business – shot up by 261% in the third quarter compared to the same period last year.
This brought total profit for the three months to the end of September to £364million – an increase of 6% on Q3 2016.
Underlying profits amounted to around £200million, a decrease of around 10% compared to this time last year.
The firm said in a trading statement that its sale of upstream oil and gas assets to petrochemical giant Ineos had been a “milestone” in the transformation from black to green energy.
Chief executive and president Henrik Poulsen said: “Our vision is to create a world that runs entirely on green energy. We expect that more than 95% of the power and heat we generate in 2023 will be green.
“The year is developing according to our expectations and today we increased our EBITDA guidance for 2017 by DKK 2bn to DKK 19-21 billion following the agreement to divest 50% of Walney Extension to PKA and PFA, two leading Danish pension funds.
“In Q3 2017, we increased generation from our offshore wind farms and at the same time we strengthened our long-term development pipeline with the world’s largest offshore wind farm Hornsea 2 with a capacity of 1.4GW, which will be completed in 2022.
“This will be our first offshore wind farm, which can generate power at a lower price than newly constructed coal- and gas-fired power stations. This is a major breakthrough, both for Ørsted and the green transformation.”
EBITDA guidance has been increased from DKK 17-19 billion to DKK 19-21 billion.
This corresponds to an underlying growth of 32-45%.
Orsted expects to finalise the divestment of 50% of Borkum Riffgrund 2 and Walney Extension in 2017.
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