This comes alongside the announcement that the company has been granted approval to build a £177 million energy recovery plant at its Oxwellmains waste treatment hub in East Lothian, Scotland.
Pennon Group, which also owns the utilities firm South West Water, revealed today that it has posted £692 million of revenue for the six months to September 30, with revenue for Viridor up by 6.6% to £424 million, but earnings before tax decreased by 32% to £28 million.
Viridor’s recycling volumes remained ‘stable’ at 0.9 million tonnes, the company stated, with revenues per tonne from the sale of recyclate falling to £86, 7.5% lower than during the previous year. The company also closed two under-performing MRFs in the first half of the year to reduce costs.
Pennon Group chairman Ken Harvey, said: “Financial performance at Viridor has been in line with management expectations. The company flagged at the last Preliminary Results that EBITDA in the first half of 2014/15 would be materially lower than in the first half of 2013/14. However, the ERFs coming on stream this year are expected to boost EBITDA in the second half of 2014/15 and result in 2014/15 full year EBITDA for Viridor exceeding 2013/14.
“The company has made excellent progress in establishing its ERF business – two plants have come on stream already this year. They contribute to Viridor’s bottom line, reflecting the realisation of a strategy which is expected to contribute circa £100m to Viridor’s EBITDA in 2016/17.”
East Lothian
The final green light for the East Lothian plant serves as a timely example of the firm’s shift towards energy generation, with the 300,000 tonnes per-year capacity plant to produce around 30MW of energy which can be sent directly to the grid.
Viridor secured planning consent for the site from Scottish Ministers in December 2010, and approval from SEPA in 2011, and made the decision to proceed following the discharge of planning conditions and funding approval from Pennon.
The facility is due for completion in December 2017, following a 36 month build programme, and it is anticipated that the plant will support 55 full-time jobs.
Commenting on the announcement, Ian McAulay, chief executive of Viridor said: “I am pleased to announce final approval for our £177m Oxwellmains energy recovery facility project, our latest investment in Scotland’s green economy.
“With an ambitious zero waste agenda focused on waste reduction, reuse, enhanced recycling and recovering energy from what remains, Scotland is realising the value of waste as a resource, rather than something that is simply thrown away. But achieving not only cleaner, greener waste management, but a truly integrated Scottish secondary resource sector embedded in the supply chain will require major investment to translate policy into practice.”
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