Galp oil output in Q4 down 10% YoY, sales of oil products down 24%

Oil production by Portugal’s Galp Energia was in Q4 2020 down 10% on the same period a year earlier, and sales of oil products to customers down by 24%, according to a statement issued on Friday.

According to the trading update sent by Galp to Portugal’s securities markets regulator, the CMVM, the company’s net entitlement to oil – after payment of taxes in kind to the countries in which it is involved in production – stood at 121,000 barrels per day, down 8% on the third quarter and 10% on the fourth quarter of 2019.

The update, which outlines the macroeconomic, operational and commercial conditions to which Galp was subject during Q4, shows that in Brazil production was down 10% on the year, while in Angola the drop was as much as 15%.

In the document, Galp stresses that oil production was affected by planned maintenance activities and operational restrictions that resulted mainly from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The company’s refining margin shrank by 53% on a year earlier, with the company blaming this on an operational slowdown at its Matosinhos unit, near Porto.

Sales of oil products to customers were down 24% on the fourth quarter of 2019, as were sales of natural gas. Sales of electricity, however, were up 9% in the period.

In the trading update, Galp stresses that commercial volumes were affected by the “adverse2 economic context resulting from the pandemic.

At the end of 2020 Galp had net indebtedness of 2.1 billion euros, the same as at the end of September, but the update states that the figure would be 1.7 billion euros if the sale of a 75% stake in Galp Gás Natural Distribuição (CGND), which is to be completed during the first quarter of this year, were taken into account.

Galp also recalls that the data are provisional and that full figures for the quarter are to be released on February 22.