Abu Dhabi’s TAQA 2014 Capex Forecast At $2.15bn – CFO

Abu Dhabi National Energy Company the state-owned oil explorer and power supplier, has forecast a capital expenditure (capex) of $2.15 billion for 2014, its chief financial officer said in a presentation on Wednesday.

Of this figure, TAQA has spent $356 million in the first quarter, of which $290 million was for oil and gas schemes and $66 million for power and water projects, Stephen Kersley said in a presentation via conference call.

The capex forecast for the year is lower than the $2.37 billion which the company spent in 2013.

TAQA, 75 per cent owned by the Abu Dhabi government, has total debt of $21.7 billion as of March 31, of which $11.7 billion is non-recourse project debt with scheduled repayment profile. The rest is bond and loan debt borrowed by the company, Kersley said.

TAQA has Dhs14.9 billion ($4.06 billion) of liquidity available, of which Dhs4.2 billion is in cash and Dhs10.7 billion is unutilised bank loans, he added.

Earlier on Wednesday, TAQA posted a 158 per cent jump in first-quarter net profit as revenue from its oil and gas business soared.