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Speaker 1: Got another healthy set of books for another gen Taylor.

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Speaker 1: Mercury's recorded a net profit of twenty million dollars for

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Speaker 1: the first half of the year. That's up from last

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Speaker 1: year sixty seven million dollar loss in the chief executive

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Speaker 1: Stu Hamilton joins us. Now, high stup, Hi, how are

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Speaker 1: you very well? Good to talk to you again. I'm

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Speaker 1: not tempted to do a capital raise like the others.

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Speaker 2: No, No, we're in a position which we think is

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Speaker 2: well managed. We've been disciplined and how we manage our money,

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Speaker 2: how we earn our money and spend it. So we're

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Speaker 2: investing wisely, performing strongly, and think that gives us options

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Speaker 2: without having to go and seek capital from our owners.

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Speaker 1: Now, I have heard some commentary today blaming the high

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Speaker 1: power prices that we're all paying across the country on

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Speaker 1: high dividends and you've lifted dual dividends. Is that a

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Speaker 1: fair point that's been made.

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Speaker 2: No, I can understand why people will be thinking that way. Like,

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Speaker 2: there's a tough time in New Zealand and energy prices

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Speaker 2: certainly contribute to the cost of living, but there's a

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Speaker 2: number of things we do and actually to try and

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Speaker 2: bring that down and part of that is taking over

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Speaker 2: half of the money we earn and investing at back

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Speaker 2: and our current power plants and a new power plant.

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Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on LNG.

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Speaker 2: We're broadly supportive of LERG. I think the thing that's

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Speaker 2: trying to be solved here is to come up with

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Speaker 2: a mechanism that ensures that in the dry years we've

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Speaker 2: got something that backs us up. Now, we had to

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Speaker 2: look at ourselves and for Mercury we didn't see it

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Speaker 2: necessary to fit inside our suite of our sets in portfolio.

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Speaker 2: But I think overall for New Zealand, depending on how

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Speaker 2: that the prices flow through, it's probably something that should

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Speaker 2: be part of the mix. But it's probably part of

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Speaker 2: the mix, it's not the whole mix.

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Speaker 1: What price does it have to be to be cheaper

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Speaker 1: than coal?

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Speaker 2: So if coal comes in, it typically sets a ceiling

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Speaker 2: of what the price should be and typically somewhere around

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Speaker 2: that two hundred two hundred and fifty dollars per megal

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Speaker 2: hour for coal, which means that LNGE gas coming into

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Speaker 2: New Zealand probably needs to be around that fifteen to

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Speaker 2: twenty dollars per gigadul range which.

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Speaker 1: Is coming on at twenty five.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so it might be a little bit. So what

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Speaker 2: it wind up doing is set a ceiling on what

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Speaker 2: the price could go to during those dry years back

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Speaker 2: in twenty twenty four, when we had that period of

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Speaker 2: high wholesale power prices and they went up to about

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Speaker 2: eight hundred dollars for Mega what hour. This would set

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Speaker 2: a cap which means that it shouldn't be heading up.

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Speaker 2: There should be sort of capped around that two hundred

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Speaker 2: and fifty to three hundred dollars.

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Speaker 1: Nip yaph Okay, I really appreciate you talking to them.

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Speaker 1: By the way, are putting up power prices this year.

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Speaker 2: The power prices are typically going up around that five

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Speaker 2: to seven percent, but a big chunk of that is

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Speaker 2: associated with lines and transmission increases.

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Speaker 1: Okay, she you. Thank you as always, ste Hamilton, Mercury's

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Speaker 1: chief executive. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen

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Speaker 1: live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.