Dong Energy unveiled plans to establish an outpost in Asia-Pacific as it reported a first quarter net profit of Dkr5.2bn.
The Danish company said it has “taken initiatives to expand our geographic scope by establishing a presence in Taiwan in order to explore offshore wind opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region”.
It builds on a dominant position in European offshore and a 2.5GW pipeline in the US.
Dong first quarter net profits were up Dkr3.5bn year on year, driven by a 53% rise in the operating result for its wind business to Dkr2.9bn.
EBITDA was Dkr8.1bn, compared with Dkr6bn in the same quarter last year although the positive result was partly offset by lower gas, oil and power prices.
Return on capital employed over the last 12 months was 14%, compared with just 5% at the end of the first quarter 2015.
Investments totalled Dkr4.2bn largely in offshore wind with six projects currently in the mix in the UK and Germany.
Dong said investments for 2016 would be lower than originally forecast at up to Dkr21bn rather than up to Dkr23bn.
Chief executive Henrik Poulsen (pictured) said: “Our strategic shift towards renewables and green customer solutions is well under way and continues to support our strong financial performance – both short and longer-term, which has led us to increase our ROCE expectation for the group from 12% by 2020 to 12%-14% in the period 2017-2020.”
The company said preparations for a planned IPO of proceed according to plan with a listing of the company on the cards before the end of Q1 2017.
Image: Dong
