Huadian Power International Corp<600027><1071>, China's largest independent power producer, announced Friday that its net profit increased 141% year on year to RMB 361 million in the third quarter of this year, whereas it recorded a loss of RMB 874 million for the same period of last year.

The power producer said in a statement that its net profit for the first three quarters of this year increased 166% from a year earlier to RMB 908 million and that earnings per share were RMB 0.15. In the first nine months of last year, the company recorded a loss of RMB 1.37 billion.

Huadian Power attributed the increase in net profit to last year's adjustment to power prices and to a decline in fuel costs.

In the first nine months, the company earned RMB 26.83 billion in operating income, 12.6% more than in the same period of last year. Gross profit margin during the period was 16.9%, up 13.8 percentage points from the same period of last year.

Huadian Power announced that it plans to issue up to 750 million A shares for RMB 4.5 per share or RMB 3.5 billion at most to replenish working capital and to fund development at five power projects, China Knowledge reported earlier.