Manitoba Hydro posts $99-M profit

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/09/2020 (2008 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba Hydro has emerged from one of the most challenging years in its history with a $99-million profit.

In its annual report released Tuesday, the Crown corporation said net income was down $22 million in 2019-20 compared with the year before due to lower power usage, the effects of the October ice storm, and higher financing and depreciation costs.

Offsetting some of the losses were higher export revenues, customer growth and the first full year of a June 1, 2018, electric rate increase.

The October storm caused massive provincewide outages and devastating damage. More than 1,000 kilometres of powerlines, 4,000 wooden poles, and 100 steel transmission towers were downed by heavy, wet snow and powerful winds.

Storm-related costs amounted to $79 million by the time the books were closed on the fiscal year March 31.

“The scale and duration of this challenge was something we had never anticipated nor seen before, and together, we overcame it,” Hydro president and chief executive officer Jay Grewal said in a “letter to customers” as part of the annual report.

Manitoba Hydro’s total electric and natural gas revenues totalled $2.6 billion last year. The Crown corporation serves 593,490 customers with electricity and 132 communities with natural gas.

Hydro has total assets of $29.3 billion and a total debt of $23.3 billion. It employs 5,393 people.

The annual report also revealed two confirmed cases of wrongdoing as a result of disclosures under the province’s whistleblower protection legislation. Few details were released.

In one case, the report said, an employee was fired after having been found to direct a contractor to commit a wrongful act. In the other, an employee who “took corporate property for personal interests” was terminated.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca