Mixed Greens: Carbon Conscious profit soars, outlook positive

WA-based carbon offset company Carbon Conscious has announced a profit before tax of $4.9 million for the 2012 financial year, a 789 per cent increase on its 2011 result. The ASX-listed company – which helps major Australian and New Zealand corporations offset their carbon liabilities through the establishment of carbon plantation projects – reported revenue of $16.6 million, a 236 per cent from on FY11. In its preliminary final report released to the ASX on Friday, Carbon Conscious linked its almost eight-fold increase in before-tax profit to a substantial increase in planting spread throughout the wheat belt in WA and a small planting in NSW.

Carbon Conscious now has approximately 18,500 hectares under management, with more than $45 million in contracted revenue to be collected over the next 15 years. The company listed its key milestones for the year as the completion of the 2011 plantation in Australia of approximately 2 million trees, and the completion of the 2011 plantation in New Zealand of approximately 550,000 trees. It also gave a nod to the passing of legislation for the federal government’s Carbon Farming Initiative and Clean Energy Act, as well as Origin Energy exercising their 2012 contract planting options.

Origin has, however, revealed it will not be proceeding with its 2013 planting options – an announcement the energy utility made on Tuesday, the same day the government revealed it would be scrapping the carbon floor price. AAP reported on Friday that Carbon Conscious has shrugged this off as a “coincidence,” with Daniel Stevens, the company’s director of business development, saying that Origin’s decision was based on other commitments, including focusing on its Gladstone LNG project. “They are happy with us, and now they’re just looking for some sentiment improvement to see what will happen at the next election,” Stevens told AAP.

Stevens said the scrapping of the carbon floor price would be good for businesses like Carbon Conscious because carbon forestry would be a cheaper option in the long term. “It’s given us more chance of signing new business,” he said. “When a company is look at investing into long-term hedging solutions, they need to understand or have comfort around what the future carbon price will be. …By locking into a long term stream of carbon known prices, they’ve mitigated that risk.”

In other news…

Plans to build the world’s largest offshore wind farm – a £4.5 billion, 339-turbine project 13 miles off the coast of northern Scotland – were yesterday submitted to the Scottish government by Moray Offshore Renewables Ltd, a joint venture between Portuguese company EDP Renewables and Spanish firm Repsol. BusinessGreen reports that it is estimated the proposed 1.5GW wind farm would generate enough electricity to power a million homes – some 40 per cent of Scotland’s households.

Suntech Power Holdings has reduced its forecast for shipments this year as increasing competition drove down prices for its products. Bloomberg reports that the Chinese solar maker expects to ship 1.8-2GW of PV panels, down from its previous forecast of 2.1-2.5GW.

Meanwhile, fellow Chinese solar PV maker JinkoSolar Holding will supply 1MW of panels to a chrome mine in South Africa’s Limpopo province, reducing its daytime use of diesel generators. Bloomberg reports that a 4,170-panel plant, designed by Solea Renewables, will be built on a site owned by Cronimet Energy by late October.

Coconut Island, home to the University of Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology and the isle shown in the opening and closing credits of 1960s TV show Gilligan’s Island, has entered a 20-year agreement with SolarCity to install 260kW of solar panels to supply 25 per cent of the university’s total energy usage by 2020.

European Union carbon was the second-fastest-rising commodity this month, according to a ranking of 80 commodities tracked by Bloomberg. While UN emissions credits continued to fall, EU carbon allowances for December rose 5.1 per cent to close at €8.08 a metric ton today on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London, the biggest jump this month.