Last month's deadly quake and blizzards over the winter combined to slash State Grid Corp. of China's (SGCC) profits, which fell more than 80 percent year-on-year during the first five months to 2.9 billion yuan (about 408 million U.S. dollars).

The decline came despite a 14.5-percent rise in operating income to 441.9 billion yuan.

Repairing the damage from the disasters will cost an estimated 73.6 billion yuan, the leading power grid operator said, compared with 47.1 billion yuan in profits in 2007.

Repair of the quake damage alone is expected to cost 34.6 billion yuan, Thursday's China Securities Journal reported.

Preliminary estimates showed the quake caused SGCC more than 12 billion yuan in losses, with its Sichuan Province division accounting for 10.6 billion yuan.

SGCC spokesman Lu Jian said that this year would be challenging but the company was running smoothly, according to Thursday's Beijing News.

The company has fixed nearly all the transmission lines and transformer substations damaged in the May 12 earthquake.

SGCC distributes power in 26 provincial regions and its transmission network covers more than 88 percent of the country.

The gap between power supply and demand in SGCC's service territory is expected to reach 10 million kilowatts this summer, exacerbated by coal shortages and weather problems, a local newspaper cited SGCC sources as saying.

(Xinhua News Agency June 5, 2008)