Dong Energy boosted operational pre-tax earnings by 14% in the first nine months of 2015 to what it described as “a positive development in the underlying business”.

The Danish company said EBITDA was Dkr14.8bn (€2bn) in the period, up from Dkr13bn (€1.7bn) in the corresponding segment of 2014 :

“The positive development in operations can mainly be ascribed to higher generation from offshore wind farms, completed renegotiation of an oil-indexed gas purchase contract and lower costs in the E&P business”, it said.

Net profit was Dkr3.2bn (€429m), up Dkr2.4bn (€322m) on the year-ago totals. Gross investments were Dkr14.6bn (€1.95bn) mainly on offshore wind construction but also oil and gas fields.

Return on capital employed was 7% on an adjusted year-to-date basis.

Production from offshore wind was up 24% year-on-year with contributions from newbuild projects at Westermost Rough, West of Duddon Sands and Borkum Riffgrund 1. This was offset by sales of a stake in London Array and export cable issues at Anholt.

Dong is planning to pursue an IPO within the next 18 months with preparations already underway :

“The company continued to develop according to expectations during third quarter and we are very satisfied with the operational and financial performance”, said chief executive Henrik Poulsen