Ørsted doubles 9-mo profit, lifts 2022 earnings guidance

Danish clean energy group Ørsted A/S (CPH:ORSTED) on Thursday reported a doubling of its profit for the first nine months of 2022 and raised its full-year forecast for EBITDA excluding earnings from new partnerships.

The offshore wind major said that earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for the January-September 2022 period were up by 56% on the year to DKK 25.4 billion (USD 3.38bn/EUR 3.41bn). Almost DKK 11 billion of that was associated with the 50% farm-downs of Hornsea 2 and Borkum Riffgrund 3. Excluding new partnerships, EBITDA went up by 34% to DKK 14.4 billion.

Mainly thanks to higher earnings in the Bioenergy & Other segment from the company’s CHP plants, it is revising upwards its full-year guidance for EBITDA excluding new partnerships by DKK 1 billion to a range of DKK 21 billion-23 billion. In its financial report, Ørsted explained the higher CHP earnings with higher power prices in Denmark and noted that, as it only hedges the power it cogenerates with heat, the company anticipates continuing to benefit from these high power prices.

At the same time, Ørsted lowered its forecast for gross investments by DKK 5 billion to a range of DKK 38 billion-42 billion. This is mainly because of timing effects on projects, with lower spending throughout the year than originally planned.

“Despite the highly unusual and volatile period with war, high inflation, and increasing interest rates Ørsted has continued the build-out of renewable energy and the delivery of power and heat to our communities. Most of the power delivered was under fixed-price agreements or hedged,” commented Mads Nipper, group president and CEO of Ørsted.

The following table gives more information about the company’s third-quarter and nine-month financial performance.

(DKK 1 = USD 0.133/EUR 0.134)

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