Power Play $$$$$

                                  Regardless which Province , State, or Country you live in,we are always asked (or taken from is more like it) for more money,.it's always rising costs, higher taxes, or were giving money by the 100's of millions to other country's (that don't even like us....hahahaha) but I always get a laugh ,when banks or oil companies boast about record profits..Just like this Gazette story about HydroQuebec ,....making Billions in profit ,but we never see a decrease in cost ,nor an increase in better service >...Hmmmmm   I wonder whose pockets are being filled here: but it happens everywhere,like an organized game plan (more like an organized Crime Plan)

MONTREAL ­­ Hydro-Québec posted a record income of almost $3.04 billion from continuing operations in 2009 despite strong recessionary headwinds that included less revenue from industrial sales in Quebec and a higher Canadian dollar.

“This is an historic summit for the enterprise,” chief executive officer Thierry Vandal told a Montreal Board of Trade luncheon Thursday. “We are very proud of this result.”

Active risk management in the form of financial hedges for exchange rates, aluminum prices and energy prices helped offset a drop in industrial sales in Quebec and revenue from exports, Vandal said.

The hedges were put in place before the severe downturn in 2008 and “we harvested the fruits of that during the crises,” Vandal later told reporters.

Hedging added about $600 million to the utility’s bottom line.

Vandal’s speech to a receptive audience of business leaders provided financial details for Hydro-Québec’s 2009 fiscal year along with an outline of ongoing hydroelectric projects and various projects related to the development of electric vehicles.

With a strong grid – which will see $8-billion in improvements over the next five years - and low-cost hydroelectric power, Quebec is ideally suited to electric vehicles, Vandal said.

“In Quebec, it would now be seven times less expensive to run (vehicles) on electricity than on gas,” he said.

Vandal also used the occasion to clarify a couple of issues related to the utility’s recent out-of-province ventures.

Firstly, the cancellation of Hydro-Québec’s $3.2-billion offer for most of New Brunswick Power Corp.’s generating assets has no impact on the utility’s 2009-2013 strategic plan, he said.

The deal – which was initially proposed by New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham and subsequently ran into stiff public opposition – came apart as Hydro-Québec was assessing NB Power’s assets during the due diligence process, Vandal said.

It “exposed conditions and costs that Hydro-Québec was not ready to assume,” he said. “Those elements were quite significant, unforeseen and we weren’t able to resolve the differences” with NB Power.

Vandal addressed a recent published account about the 26-year power deal between Hydro-Québec and Vermont in which an energy expert estimated that the U.S. state would pay only 4.5 cents per kilowatt hour for the power.

“That is incorrect information,” he said.

If the cost formula for the deal was implemented today, Vermont would pay between six and seven cents per kilowatt hour in 2012, when the juice starts flowing south. Rates are linked to market prices and will evolve during the term of the contract, Vandal said.

Hydro-Québec’s net income for 2009 was almost $3.04 billion, or $106 million lower than the $3.14 billion posted in 2008 because results for that year were inflated by gains from a price adjustment related to the 2006 sale of the utility’s Chilean assets.

Income from discontinued assets in 2008 totalled $129 million.

Revenue from 2009 electricity sales in Quebec increased by $104 million from 2008 to almost $10.55 billion, mainly because of rate hikes. Revenue from large industrial customers dropped in part because of lower aluminum prices. Special industrial rates are linked to aluminum prices.

Revenue from exports in 2009 totaled $1.51 billion, compared to $1.92 billion in 2008, mainly because of a drop in energy prices.

In 2009, energy exports accounted for 10 per cent of Hydro-Quebec’s sales but 22 per cent of its revenue. In 2008, a bumper year for energy exports, about 32 per cent of the utility’s revenues were from energy exports which then made up eight per cent of its sales.

Hydro-Québec paid its sole shareholder, the Quebec government, a dividend of almost $2.17 billion.

Income from continuing operations in 2008 was $3.012 billion, compared to $3.035 billion in 2009.

More to follow.

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

           .......but it's for our own good you know.........hahahaha     and you see who the 'sole shareholder' is......the Quebec Govt'.........