Saudi Electricity Company posted a 1 per cent fall in third-quarter net profit, missing analysts' forecasts, as its power generation capacity increased.

Profit fell to SR2.853 billion ($761 million) in the three months ended September 30, from SR2.875 billion in the same period a year earlier, the utility said in a bourse statement on Sunday.

Two analysts polled by Reuters had forecast SEC would have profits of more than SR2.9 billion. Operational income dipped 3 per cent to SR2.74 billion.

SEC's long-serving chief executive, Ali bin Saleh Al-Barrak, resigned in August and was replaced with Ziad bin Mohammed al-Shiha, who had served as a manager at state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco and called for efforts to make power generation more efficient.

Also in August, the company signed a contract with South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries Company (HHI) for construction of a SR12.2 billion power plant in Shuqaiq.

SEC's results are highly seasonal due to the wide variation between summer and winter electricity demand.-Reuters