Alliant Energy Corp. has posted $213 million in net income attributable to shareholders for the first quarter (Q1), up from $158 million for the same three-month period last year as power and gas utility revenue rose. The Madison, Wisconsin-based company’s earnings per share of $0.83 surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate, an average of projections by brokerage analysts, of 57 cents. Revenue totaled $1.13 billion, up from Q1 2024’s $1.03 billion. Electric utility sales contributed $853 million, while $240 million came from natural gas utility – both up year-on-year. “We are off to a solid start in 2025, delivering more than 25 percent of our earnings guidance midpoint, which is ahead of plan despite negative temperature impacts on sales”, president and chief executive Lisa Barton said in the company’s quarterly report. Operating expenses from generation fuel and purchased power rose to $175 million, as did power transmission service expenditure ($158 million). However, energy efficiency costs fell to $10 million. Depreciation and amortization climbed to $211 million from $189 million. Operating profit landed at $257 million, up from $222 million for Q1 2024. Profit before income taxes was $166 million, up from $148 million. The Utilities and Corporate Services segment generated $0.87 in earnings per share (EPS), up from $0.62 for Q1 2024. “The primary drivers of higher EPS were higher revenue requirements from capital investments, estimated temperature impacts on retail electric and gas sales, and timing of income tax expense”, the report stated. “These items were partially offset by higher depreciation and financing expenses”. American Transmission Co. Holdings, through which Alliant Energy operates the regional power grid in parts of Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, logged a net profit per share of $0.04, the same as Q1 2024. The non-utility and parent result was a net loss per share of $0.08, compared

Saudi Aramco reported a decline in profit in the first quarter as lower crude prices put pressure on the finances of the world’s biggest oil exporter. Net income slipped 4.6 percent to 97.5 billion riyals ($26 billion) in the quarter, according to a statement Sunday. Free cash flow again failed to cover the dividend despite the total payout being lower. Operating profit, which fell 5.3 percent, beat analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.      The numbers are another sign of the pressures on Aramco’s balance sheet. As part of a previously announced plan, the company earlier this year decided to cut its dividend for 2025 by about a third to $85 billion. While that helps ease some of the strain on Aramco, it lowers a key source of revenue for the Saudi government whose own finances are under increasing stress.  Oil’s decline since April is likely to inflict more pain both on Aramco and the Saudi government despite the higher oil production. Over the past five weeks, Riyadh led the OPEC+ coalition through two bigger-than-scheduled supply hikes, which together with US President Donald Trump ’s trade war, briefly crashed oil futures to a four-year low below $60 a barrel in London. The company’s total dividend for the quarter fell to $21.36 billion, compared with $31 billion in the same three months of last year. That’s primarily because Aramco decided to vastly reduce the performance-linked component of the payout after completing the distribution of the bumper profits from 2022. The lower payout will add to the strain on the Saudi budget as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spends hundreds of billions of dollars to modernize the economy. That plan, which includes an entirely new city in the desert called Neom and a push into sports, has led to a widening deficit, with debt

Iberdrola SA has inked a deal to divest SP Smart Meter Assets Ltd. (SPSMAL) to Macquarie Group Ltd. for about GBP 900 million ($1.2 billion). SPSMAL manages 2.5 million meters in the United Kingdom. It would be taken over by Macquarie Specialized and Asset Finance, part of the Australian financial services provider’s Commodities and Global Markets business. The parties expect to complete the transaction in the third quarter, subject to approval by the Competition and Markets Authority. The acquisition would increase meters managed by Macquarie in the UK to over 13 million. Established 2003, its UK metering business currently manages 7.9 million smart meters and 2.5 million traditional meters across Great Britain, making Macquarie one of the biggest independent MAPs (meter asset providers) in the UK, according to Macquarie. “It has also provided over GBP 1.5 billion of funding to assist with Britain’s smart meter rollout”, Macquarie said in an online statement. “Upon completion of the sale, Macquarie will enter a long-term meter rental agreement to provide Smart Meter Asset Provision (MAP) services to Scottish Power and support the business in the further roll-out of smart meters across Great Britain”, Macquarie said, referring to Iberdrola’s arm in the UK, Scottish Power Ltd. “The replacement of traditional gas and electricity meters with smart meters represents an upgrade to energy infrastructure in the UK by providing consumers with near real-time information which they can use to manage their energy use and cut their bills”, Macquarie added. “Smart meters also support the transition to a low-carbon energy system by unlocking new approaches to managing demand”. Iberdrola said separately, “The transaction is part of Iberdrola’s strategy of rotating non-strategic assets. In fact, in accordance with its Strategic Plan 2024/2026, Iberdrola already exceeds EUR 10,000 million in alliance and divestment operations. This transaction is the

GB Energy interim chief executive Dan McGrail has said troubled wind farm developer Ørsted has undertaken “one of the most radical corporate transformations” of recent years, but offered no assurances that GB Energy will invest in offshore wind. “I draw great inspiration from some of the examples in the market,” McGrail said during a fireside chat at the Innovation Zero conference in London last week. “You look at Ørsted. I know they’ve had perhaps a difficult couple of years, but 15 years ago it was an oil and gas company, and they did one of the most radical corporate transformations in a relatively short period of time. “It shows what is possible when you have clarity of strategy, that you have alignment of vision and that you build deep capability that helps you unlock markets around the world.” Fortunes turned around for the Danish wind developer this year after it was forced to make write-downs on its US business, ousted and replaced former CEO Mads Nipper at a critical juncture and cancelled Hornsea 4. The developer’s shock decision to discontinue the Hornsea 4 wind farm off the coast of East Yorkshire on Wednesday, the largest such project to secure a long-term incentive in the government’s latest allocation round, will test the mettle of the recently formed national energy champion. Acknowledging some of the wider challenges that Ørsted faces, McGrail gave a nod to the transformative potential of renewable energy. But the question remains whether, despite McGrail and chair Juergen Maier’s stated intentions, the UK’s new state energy company could invest in the ailing offshore wind farm. The organisation remains small with just a skeleton crew of staff and was granted an £8.3 billion budget by parliament, but that is under review. And while Maier and McGrail have indicated that GB

Government will either listen and change – or will “prematurely bring an end to the North Sea”, a union official has said. When asked if recent announcements of oil and gas job cuts will prompt government support, union leader John Boland responded “honestly, no.” Last week saw the latest announcement of job cuts from the oil and gas sector as the UK’s largest operator unveiled plans to slash its Aberdeen headcount by a quarter. The decision to cut 250 of Harbour Energy’s 1,000-person workforce came down to the impacts of the country’s fiscal regime and government dithering with regards to the allocation of carbon capture storage (CCS) funds. However, headlines of operators moving overseas, downgrading investment in the UK, cutting domestic jobs and stalling projects is not something that started with Harbour Energy last week. A string of operators have shared the consensus that the current headline rate of tax, imposed at 75%, and uncertainty over continued oil and gas licencing has resulted in upset across the industry. Last year, Apache announced it would be vacating the UK by the end of the decade, merger deals to consolidate UK assets and derisk international portfolios have become commonplace and redundancies have continued to make headlines as a result. ‘Everything seems to be getting cut back’ as contractors suffer © Supplied by Kami Thomson/DC ThomUnite the Union regional officer John Boland in his offices on Aberdeen’s Kings Street. Kami Thomson/DC Thomson. Wavering certainty around future UK operations are also impacting the supply chain as tenders for maintenance work, which have historically been rife at this time of year, have also dried up, according to Unite the Union. The union’s regional officer told Energy Voice: “Say we looked pre-covid, there’d be employment for people offshore all over the place, there’d be lots of

Benj Sykes, Country Manager at Ørsted UK discusses the company is leading the way from the UK in green energy infrastructure. At Ørsted, we have a vision of creating a world that runs entirely on green energy.We transformed from being one of Europe’s most fossil fuel-intensive utilities to being ranked one of the world’s most sustainable energy companies and a global leader in the transition to green energy. Now, the world is facing two urgent and deeply interconnected crises: climate change and biodiversity loss. As the world’s leading offshore wind developer, at Ørsted we believe that renewable energy is at the intersection of these challenges. In order to tackle both the climate and biodiversity crises, we need to build green energy infrastructure at a pace and scale never seen before – but we need to build it responsibly and sustainably, in a way that benefits both people and planet. Leading the way from the UK The UK has long established itself as a world leader in offshore wind. Other markets around the world look to the UK as an example of how things should be done – not just in terms of scale and cost, but how to build offshore wind in the right way. We have always had a strong focus on building projects sensitively and sustainably. We’ve had to innovate and work closely with other partners, NGOs, scientists, academics, and industries to find solutions to some very complex challenges. With the government’s ambition to accelerate the deployment of offshore wind to deliver clean power by 2030, the UK is, once more, going to have to take the lead on creating a regulatory framework that can deliver this whilst also improving the biodiversity in our seas and coastline. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill now under consideration in Parliament offers