Drax chairman leaves on a high
THE man who masterminded the recovery and reorganisation and then flotation of Drax power station yesterday stepped down from the company.
Chairman Gordon Horsfield retired from the board of the Yorkshire power station at its annual general meeting held in London. He will be replaced by Charles Berry.
Mr Horsfield told shareholders that last year Drax received total revenue from electricity generation of £1.25bn with gross profits of £701m and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of £506m
“In a year which saw significant volatility in the commodity markets and major planned outages on two of our units I believe these results reflect great credit
to everyone in the Drax team,” said Mr Horsfield, a former insolvency partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
“Although financial markets tend to focus on the value of Drax based upon extrapolations of relevant commodity prices, ultimately it is the skills, commitment and performance of all our employees applied to those market circumstances and to the physical assets for which they care that delivers the results and real value to our shareholders.
“Since our results presentation on March 4, commodity market conditions for Drax have been good. Power prices, underpinned by firm gas and oil prices, have risen. Coal prices are at a similar level, whilst carbon prices have risen again supported by firm gas prices. The combined effect has been an overall increase in the dark green spread continuing the improving trend we have seen over the last nine months.”
Mr Horsfield added that the future of Drax looked very positive.
“Over the next decade we believe that the electricity wholesale market of Great Britain will provide increasing returns to available capacity as the retirement
of some of the older plant currently on the system occurs and reduces the margin of installed capacity above system demand.
“This will be positive for Drax; our strategic position and the focus we have given to our development programme make us well placed to deliver value growth to our shareholders relative to the commodity markets in which we operate,” he said.
Drax is also looking for a successor to finance director Gordon Boyd, who is stepping down later this year.
