Galp’s profit drops 13% to €26 million in Q1

  • ECO News
  • 26 April 2021

Despite the results being on positive ground, they represent a 13% drop compared to the first quarter of 2020.

Galp Energia recorded a €26 million net profit in the first quarter of this year, down 13% year-on-year, according to a statement sent this Monday to the Portuguese Securities and Exchange Commission (CMVM).

“These quarterly results, achieved in still very challenging macro conditions, denote a healthy improvement, even when compared to the same quarter of 2020, when we had only felt the initial impact of the extraordinary events of that year,” says the CEO, Andy Brown, in a statement.

In this period, EBITDA rose 6% to 499 million euros, year-on-year, and 21.7% compared to the last quarter of 2020. This figure is “supported by a robust upstream performance, despite production constraints, which more than offset the lower contribution from downstream segments,” the company explains.

According to the company’s results, Galp increased investment by 23% in the first three months of the year, totalling €178 million (€33 million more than the previous year) and net debt rose 4% to €1.55 billion.

Refining activity continues to have a negative impact on results (by €6 million) given the fall in refining margins, the restrictions relating to the supply of natural gas, and the negative effects related to the mismatch of pricing formulas for oil products and the increase in regasification costs in Portugal.

Commercially, the company posted a 25% drop in sales of oil products to customers, “reflecting the lower demand in Iberia as a result of lockdown measures.” Natural gas sales also fell 26%, while electricity sales rose 6% due to an increased contribution from the B2B and B2C segments.