General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) has signed a contract with Hubco to provide its digital industrial solutions for the 1,292-megawatt (MW) Hubco power plant in Baluchistan, Pakistan. Commissioned in 1997, the plant operates four 323-MW generating units. Additionally, it’s the largest independent steam power plant in Pakistan and exports power to the national grid.
“GE’s digital solutions are a game changer for the energy sector, and we are happy to be working with them,” said Khalid Mansoor, CEO of Hubco. “Once implemented at the Hubco Power Plant, these solutions will help us to enhance the reliability of our operations.”
Powered by Predix*, GE’s cloud-based operating system built exclusively for industry, GE’s Digital Power Plant includes a suite of software solutions that can enable Hubco’s power plant operators to analyze and monitor operations across all touchpoints in real time and help identify any maintenance issues ahead of time, leading to greater asset uptime and reduced unplanned downtime.
The Baluchistan Hubco power plant is equipped entirely with non-GE equipment, demonstrating the power of Predix to operate across different types of original equipment manufacturers.
“Energy is increasingly becoming digital, and we have been proud to support Pakistan’s energy sector for more than 50 years with both hardware and software solutions,” said Steve Bolze, president and CEO of GE Power. “This agreement with Hubco marks the sixth deployment of our advanced digital industrial solutions in the country, underscoring our commitment to provide Pakistan with our latest technology.”
Industry experts estimate that between now and 2025 there is $1.3 trillion in value creation for companies that embrace digitization and $90 billion is expected to be invested in the energy industry’s digitization by 2020.
“Pakistan is a leader in adopting new technologies to generate more power,” said Ganesh Bell, chief digital officer, GE Power. “This deployment of GE’s digital industrial solutions marks another chapter in our relationship with the country to deliver better productivity and outcomes for our customers.” (Original Source)
Shares of General Electric closed yesterday at $30.31, up $0.17 or 0.56%. GE has a 1-year high of $32.05 and a 1-year low of $19.37. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $30.22 and its 200-day moving average is $29.88.
On the ratings front, General Electric has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. In a report issued on June 7, Cowen analyst Gautam Khanna initiated coverage with a Hold rating on GE and a price target of $29, which represents a slight downside potential from current levels. Separately, on June 6, Merrill Lynch’s Andrew Obin reiterated a Buy rating on the stock and has a price target of $33.
According to TipRanks.com, which ranks over 7,500 financial analysts and bloggers to gauge the performance of their past recommendations, Gautam Khanna and Andrew Obin have a total average return of 12.0% and 9.0% respectively. Khanna has a success rate of 75% and is ranked #388 out of 3903 analysts, while Obin has a success rate of 64% and is ranked #668.
Overall, one research analyst has rated the stock with a Sell rating, 5 research analysts have assigned a Hold rating and 5 research analysts have given a Buy rating to the stock. When considering if perhaps the stock is under or overvalued, the average price target is $31.38 which is 3.5% above where the stock closed yesterday.
