Constellation Energy Beats Forecast

Constellation Energy's(CEG Quote) first-quarter earnings eased from a year ago as higher sales were offset by expenses including a writedown of hedges related to gas transportation contracts.

Baltimore Gas and Electric's parent earned $113.9 million, or 63 cents a share, in the quarter, compared with $120.7 million, or 68 cents a share, last year. Adjusted for the writedowns and other items, Constellation earned 70 cents a share in the quarter, beating the Thomson First Call consensus by 4 cents.

First-quarter sales rose 37% from a year ago to $4.90 billion, wiping out the Wall Street consensus of $4.32 billion. Sales in Constellation's non-regulated businesses were $3.98 billion in the latest quarter, up from $2.72 billion.

For 2006, Constellation expects to earn $3.35 to $3.65 a share, excluding results from its synfuel operations. Analysts were forecasting $3.82 a share. For 2006, the company sees earnings of $4.40 to $4.65 a share. Analysts were forecasting $4.66 a share.

"Constellation Energy delivered yet another strong performance during the first quarter, demonstrating that we are squarely focused on execution," the company said. "Constellation Energy Commodities Group delivered exceptional results, driven by the growing scale of our wholesale competitive supply activities and superior portfolio management and trading results.

"The Commodities Group made substantial progress toward meeting the new business goals we set out for the year, achieving nearly half of its total gross margin new business objective in the first quarter. In addition, Constellation Energy Generation Group set a site record for the shortest refueling outage at our Nine Mile Point nuclear plant and completed the planned reactor vessel head replacement at our Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant, which will improve reliability and reduce the length and cost of future refueling outages," it said.