Serbian Minister of Mining and Energy Aleksandar Antic said that in the first quarter of 2018, state-owned power utility EPS produced 11.3 % more electricity compared to the same period in 2017.
Minister Antic stressed that in 2017, all Serbian energy companies operated positively in financial terms for the first timer in history, adding the the Government, in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, man-aged to make significant progress when it comes to energy sector in Serbia.
Last week, Acting Director of EPS Milorad Grcic said in an interview that EPS is strong and stable company which recorded profit in the amount of over 50 million euros in 2017. Grcic said that the company has 470 million euros on its bank ac-counts, which ensures stable operation and con-tinuation of investment program. EPS‘ total reve-nues in 2017 amounted to 1.87 billion euros, which significantly more than expected. Opera-tional expenditures were 9 % lower than planned, which means that savings amounted to 175 mil-lion euros in 2017. Some 830 million euros were paid to the state budget, which accounts for about 9 % of total budget revenues.
He said that electricity production in the first three months of the year stood at 10.3 billion kWh, which is 3.5 % above the plan for the period, while coal production is 9 % higher than in the first quarter of last year. EPS also has significant amount of surplus electricity which was exported and revenues from those exports amounted about 16 million euros in 2018 so far.
