China’s creating the world’s largest power company.
The government of President Xi Jinping approved the merger of Shenhua Group Corp., the country’s top coal miner, with China Guodian Corp., among its largest power generators, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission said Monday. With assets of 1.8 trillion yuan ($271 billion), the new entity will be the world’s second-biggest company by revenue and largest by installed capacity, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Shenhua Group, which will change its name to China Energy Investment Corp., will absorb Guodian Group and become the parent of the reorganized entity, the listed units of both companies said in separate Hong Kong filings. The listed companies are also forming a coal-fired power joint-venture, which is subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals.
The new company will have installed capacity of more than 225 gigawatts, topping Electricite de France SA and Enel SpA, according to Frank Yu, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie Ltd. EDF, as the French generator is known, had net installed capacity of 137.5 gigawatts last year, according to a company presentation. Italy’s Enel had total installed capacity of 83 gigawatts as of June 30, it said.
Mutual Benefits
Shenhua will be able to lower its reliance on coal-fired capacity, currently about 90 percent, by gaining some of Guodian’s clean energy assets, Yu wrote in a research note earlier this month. Guodian, meanwhile, will be able to benefit from Shenhua’s coal supply and price risk management, as well as its integrated infrastructure of railways, harbors and ships.
Shares of Shenhua’s Hong Kong-listed unit, China Shenhua Energy Co., rose as much as 1.9 percent to HK$19.98 on Tuesday before paring its gain to 1 percent as of 9:56 a.m. local time. The city’s benchmark Hang Seng Index lost 0.7 percent. Shares of Guodian’s main Shanghai-listed unit, GD Power Development Co., will remain suspended until Sept. 4, it said Monday.
Shenhua had 1.014 trillion yuan in assets, it said in a report in June, and its listed unit produced about 290 million tons of coal last year. Guodian had total assets of 803 billion yuan, according to a statement from the company posted by state-backed industry group China Electricity Council. Shenhua had 82 gigawatts of generating capacity, while Guodian had 145 gigawatts, according to BNEF.
The merged entity will account for 13 percent of both China’s power-generating and coal-mining capacity, according to analysts at Citigroup Inc. including Jack Shang, who pegs the new company’s totals at 221 gigawatts and about 500 million tons a year, respectively.
Coal & Renewables
Xi’s government is also seeking to lower the country’s reliance on coal power and increase the use natural gas, as well as wind, solar, hydropower and nuclear. The generation capacity of the merged company will be 23 percent renewables, according to BNEF.
“This is crucial for Shenhua since due to new changes, wind, solar, nuclear and hydro generation hours are still guaranteed by regulators, while coal generators must increasingly compete in liberalized wholesale markets,” BNEF analyst Sophie Lu wrote in an Aug. 9 report. “This is only one in a series of mega-mergers China plans for power sector consolidation.”
The government may also seek a way to bundle nuclear power generators into the mega-merger mix, according to Wood Mackenzie’s Yu.
“The ultimate goal is to form bigger energy companies that can hedge against market risks between coal and power,” Yu said. “Or they can sell their nuclear technology or their coal-power technology to emerging markets in Asia. That’s what the government wants to promote.”
China Huaneng Group, the country’s biggest coal-fired power producer, may merge with State Power Investment Corp., a coal-fired generator that also owns State Nuclear Power Technology Corp., Bloomberg reported in May. SPIC Chairman Wang Binghua said in July that the company is in contact with Huaneng Group about a restructuring and “something big may happen later.”
China Huadian Corp. and China Datang Corp. are the remaining two of China’s big-five state-power generators. Hong Kong-listed Datang International Power Generation Co. rose as much as 1.9, while Huadian Power International Corp. added as much as 1.5 percent in Shanghai.