SECWA has achieved record profit for financial year

11/8/94

SECWA recorded a record profit of $106 million during the 1993-94 financial year.

Energy Minister Colin Barnett, releasing a financial summary of SECWA's annual report today, congratulated SECWA for achieving such a result which had allowed it to reduce its debt by more than $230 million.

Mr Barnett said the improved financial performance was achieved after SECWA had paid an $82 million Statutory Levy payment to the State Government.

He said that in 1991, SECWA's debt was more than $4 billion. The latest record performance had enabled debt to be reduced to $3.6 billion.

SECWA had funded a $138 million capital works program from its own resources.   The improved financial performance would help to progressively lower energy tariffs in Western Australia.

Mr Barnett said SECWA's improved performance had not been achieved by increasing energy prices for consumers.

SECWA had maintained its freeze on domestic prices for the past three years and had passed on real savings - amounting to some $70 million a year - to the business sector mainly through reductions in time-of-use tariffs.

"SECWA's success in holding down prices can be seen in the fact that electricity unit sales rose by six per cent last financial year but the value of sales increased by only two per cent. This demonstrates that sales are rising faster than income," Mr Barnett said.

"The figures augur well for the splitting of SECWA into separate electricity and gas businesses at the beginning of 1995."

The Minister said the gas business was still growing fast - there were 23,500 new connections during the year, bringing the total of gas customers to 326,500.  The quantity of gas sales also rose by five per cent.

Media contact:  Carolyn Vicars - 222 9699