ISA posts US$34mn profit Jan-Apr

Colombia's state-owned transmission company ISA posted net profits of 78.7bn pesos (US$33.7mn) in the four months from January-April this year, up 187% from the same period in 2004, the company said in a statement. Gross operating profits in January to April increased 3% to 132bn pesos, the statement said. Operating revenues were up 0.3% over the four-month period to 247bn pesos, while operating costs fell 1% to 109bn pesos due to lower taxes and a reduction in portfolio provisions. Non-operating losses fell 34.2% to 34.6bn pesos as non-operating revenues rose 79% to 33.9bn pesos and non-operating costs fell 4% to 68.5bn pesos due mainly to better results at ISA's subsidiaries. ISA paid 97.1bn pesos worth of debt from January-April, of which 27% was in foreign currency and the remaining 73% in local currency. The company's equity stood at 2.7tn pesos on April 30 of this year. ISA has two existing interconnection lines with Ecuador and it is planning to build a third one, doubling interconnection capacity to 500MW. Colombia exported 108GWh of electricity to Ecuador through April, which brought in revenues of US$7.3mn. Red Energía de Perú (REP), an ISA subsidiary, built the Peruvian side of the Ecuador-Peru interconnection, which began exporting up to 80MW to Ecuador this month under emergency conditions to offset power cuts in Ecuador's southern provinces of El Oro and Azuay. In 2003 ISA won contracts to build three transmission lines in Bolivia.