Nuclear power firm British Energy outlined the impact of fresh blows to a "fragile" financial situation today, but its new chief executive said it was doing well in the circumstances.
The provider of a fifth of Britain's electricity, surviving on a state loan after weak power prices forced its high-cost operation towards insolvency last year, reported a loss before exceptional items and tax of £90 million sterling ($157 million) for the six months to September.
That was narrowed from £124 million a year earlier. It was forced to ask the government for more credit last month to cover production problems at some of its plants and to cope with volatile power prices.
The cost so far of outages for maintenance at its Heysham reactor on the Lancashire coast in England's northwest and Sizewell on the Suffolk coast east of Birmingham has almost doubled to £95 million from £50 million, it said.
The company also revised downwards its output forecast for the year to end-March 2004 to 65.5 terawatt hours from 67 as a result of the outages.
It said operating profit would meet its own, undisclosed, expectations despite the hit, but that because of higher inflation expectations affecting nuclear liabilities, bottom line pretax profit for the year to March would miss its target.
Mr Mike Alexander, who took over as chief executive earlier this year, said the inflation adjustment was a one-off factor and that things were not as bad as they looked.
He pointed to a $277 million payment due soon from the sale of its Amergen business in the United States that should remove any further need for a state credit line, and to a restructuring plan, pending EU approval, that will provide between £150 and £200 million of annual profit.