The K-Electric (KE) held its 110th Annual General Meeting (AGM) for FY 2020. With the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, the AGM was hosted virtually. The meeting was chaired by Shan Ashary, Chairman of the KE Board, with Moonis Alvi, Chief Executive Officer, KE also in attendance, along with AamirGhaziani, Chief Financial Officer, Rizwan Dalia, Company Secretary & Chief People Officer and other members of the Board and KE leadership. Shareholders were briefed about prevalent challenges such as the COVID-19 lockdown, , continuous accumulation of outstanding net receivables from government entities (over PKR 80 billion on principal basis, as of September 30, 2020), increased finance cost (up by 166%) and the resulting distressed working capital situation. Before the COVID-19 lockdown, KE showed strong operational performance and upto March 20, 2020, recorded 3.1% growth in units sent-out, with around 2% points improvement in T&D losses, compared to the same period last year. However, significant drops in consumption by industrial and commercial consumer segments, load-shed exemption to high-loss areas and inability to carry-out theft detection activities, adversely impacted the sales mix leading to an overall increase in T&D losses. (FY 2020: 19.7%; FY 2019: 19.1%) along with significant decline in units sent-out in the last quarter, recording an annual growth of 0.5% in units sent-out (FY 2020: 17,787 GWh; FY 2019: 17,697 GWh). These factors along with a significant increase in finance cost, resulted in PKR 2.96 billion net loss, compared to PKR 17.3 billion net profit in the preceding year. During FY 2020, despite the lockdown, KE invested over PKR 55 billion across its energy value chain. Construction of the 900 MW RLNG-fired BQPS-III is being pursued on fast track basis. Further, with the objective of enhancing transmission capacity and improving overall network reliability, KE has completed over 94% of the TP-1000 project. KE has also converted over 9,000 Pole Mounted Transformers (PMTs) to Aerial Bundled Cable (ABC). This has enabled the Company to significantly reduce T&D losses and benefit consumers through reduced load-shed. KE has continued to invest in technology, including installation of Automated Meter Readers (AMRs) at PMT level and implementation of a Meter Data Management System (MDMS), which will provide greater visibility into network performance.
