Vračar: EPCG profit for two years higher than for the previous ten

Elektroprivreda Crne Gore (EPCG) in the period from January 1, 2011 to March 31, 2021 achieved a profit of 127 million euros, while since the arrival of the new management, in two years (from April 1, 2021 to March 31 2023) that profit 140 million.

This was said at the press conference by the Chief Financial Officer of EPCG, Miro Vračar.

According to him, that company allocated over 125 million euros to the state budget - 2020 million in 24,2, 61,5 million a year later and 40,5 million last year. As he pointed out, retained earnings at the end of last year amounted to 68,6 million euros, while on March 31 of this year it was 181,3 million, as well as that investments last year amounted to 47,3 million euros.

The degree of indebtedness in relation to the total capital at the end of last year was 4,94 percent, and according to Vračar, they managed to reduce the share of gross earnings of employees.

"That share was 2020 percent in 6,64, 6,44 percent a year later, and last year it was 4,93 percent. There is no such company, not only in Montenegro but also in the region, whose share of gross earnings in the total costs so little," said Vračar.

All these results, as he pointed out, were achieved in a period that was not favorable to the energy sector, bearing in mind last year's dry period and high prices of electricity on the stock market.

Speaking about the achieved business results in the previous two years, Milutin Đukanović, chairman of the EPCG board of directors, said that they saved the citizens of Montenegro over one billion euros by not increasing the price of electricity and by not being guided by the logic of increasing fuel prices.

"A citizen who now pays an average bill of 33 euros, if we had increased the price, he would pay almost three and a half times more, ie 115 euros," said Đukanović.

At the end of last year, according to him, the surplus in hydro potential was 100 gigawatts, and by selling the excess electricity from 2021, which they could sell at the end of that year for ten million euros, in the first quarter of last year, they made a profit of 25 million, i.e. an extra profit of 15 million.

He also boasted that they made a good move by purchasing the Željezara property because, as he said, they paid 20 million euros for it, its current value is 63 million, and there will be a significant increase when about 400 square meters of land, which is outside the gate factories, turns into city-building land.

Two years ago, according to Đukanović, there were 190 regular payers, while now there are 230, and the percentage of payments is over 100 percent, because they are also paying off the debt from the previous period.

"From the beginning, we have been guided by two business philosophies - to produce electricity where we consume it and to use the hydropower infrastructure to connect larger solar power plants. We have installed solar panels on over 1.500 roofs. We are doing our best to make Elektroprivreda the locomotive of economic development in Montenegro. Up and let's bring back the culture of work in this company," said Đukanović.

He repeated that the legal regulations are a problem for them, that the public registers are not in order, and that the implementation of the planned 2,5 billion investments is slow precisely because of those reasons that they cannot influence.

Mićun Milatović, executive director of the Directorate for Legal Affairs, said that the institutional framework is very often inadequate, especially when it comes to the field of energy, as well as that many projects, which are neither expensive nor technically demanding, are on hold, and that every wait it represents a loss of money, but also a loss of interested foreign partners.

As an example of waiting, he cited the construction of the solar power plant at the Slano and Krupac dams, which are not recognized in the real estate list as dams but as public roads, as well as the resolution of property-legal relations.

Đukanović: Solar construction workers want "stronger contracts"

According to Đukanović, at the end of the completion of the Solari 3000+ and 5000+ projects, which should be completed in June, based on the freed energy, the annual income will be six million euros. 2021, does not represent a realistic picture, because it is a company in the process of being founded with a bright future ahead of it".

"That loss, bearing in mind how much profit will be based on the released energy, will be remedied immediately and it cannot be observed in isolation", said Đukanović and added that the implementation of solar and hydropower plants is "a winning option and the future of the energy system".

According to him, about 450 workers are employed in Solar construction. He is aware that the workers want, as he said, "stronger contracts" in order to have a more stable labor-legal status, and he believes that this will happen in the future, because the success of the project gives them the right to do so.

"Almost everyone has re-signed a contract for three months, with the tendency to extend that period, and we think that there will be room for good workers to get permanent solutions. At Solara, we have dry gold when it comes to installers and other workers. There is no a state enterprise where more and better work is done than solar construction," Đukanović pointed out.