Galp says refining needs long-term view despite profit surge

Galp co-CEO Maria João Carioca said 2026 is set to outperform an already strong 2025, but argued that refining should be judged over decades rather than on one exceptional year. Speaking at ECO’s Fábrica 2030 conference in Porto, she said the message matters because Portugal’s tax and industrial policy can affect investment in strategic energy assets such as the Sines refinery.

Carioca was speaking a day after Galp said in a trading update that its refining margin jumped 255.79% year on year in the third quarter to a record $33.8 per barrel, up from $9.5 a year earlier. “2025 was already a good year and this year will be an even better year,” she said, while adding that the asset’s investment cycle “is measured in decades”. She also said she had “sympathy” for the difficulties that an exceptional year can create for many people.

Without directly referring to the government’s proposal for a special tax on oil companies’ windfall profits, Carioca criticised what she described as a recurring tendency to raise taxes when returns increase. She said Portugal’s tax structure is often “totally incompatible” with the goal of growing profitable companies and sustaining assets that can support those ambitions.

On Sines, Carioca said the refinery’s future cannot be secured by looking only at the domestic market. She said the site must “look outside” Portugal as value chains change and competition intensifies, noting that refining in Europe faces growing pressure while capacity has expanded in Asia and, more recently, Africa. Galp has invested €650 million in Sines in hydrogen, HVO and transition fuels to give the refinery “a future that is not only a hydrocarbons future, but a future of green fuels”, she said.

Originally published at Eco.pt