The company improves its profits by almost 36% in a context of record gas prices after the Russian intervention in Ukraine
The energy company Naturgy made a profit of 1,649 million euros in 2022, the year of the biggest energy price crisis in decades. In a context marked by the increase in megawatt hours and the record price of gas, the company’s earnings increased by almost 36%. The group emphasizes that despite the volatility and the rise in commodities, it has been the “good performance” of the liberalized activity that has enabled it to improve its activity. The company’s shares react to these results with a 1% increase on the stock market.
The company posted a gross operating income (Ebitda) of EUR 4,954 million, with an advance of 40.4%. In the period, the regulated activities posted a “good performance” with their Ebitda increasing to 2,475 million, partly due to the normalization of operating costs in Spain following the optimization plans and the positive impact of the exchange rate in Latin America, among others factors.
Deregulated activities, for their part, improved their contribution to Group Ebitda to EUR 2,574 million, driven by marketing activity in Spain and global energy management. “Fiscal year 2022 has been marked by the extreme volatility of the international energy market, as well as by geopolitical tensions that have made the year a disparate and unique one in the recent past,” said Naturgy President Francisco Reynés.
A large part of the year was dominated by the increase in natural gas rates and the government’s measure to limit these increases in the regulated tariff (TUR). In this sense, Reynés recalled the “special focus to provide citizens and businesses with the best conditions for access to energy despite the uncertainty, as evidenced by our Gas and Electricity Commitment initiatives, and others to streamline regulatory change and to automate the gas rate of its customers”.
With regard to the Geminis project, which consists of a reorganization of the group’s activities, separating the regulated from the liberalized, the company explained that this plan has been postponed to the end of the 2022 financial year without being able to provide visibility in relation to its implementation calendar. «The analysis carried out so far confirms the appropriateness and strategic sense of the Geminis project, but the implementation schedule needs to be adapted to the current market environment and its volatility, to the evolution of the European energy context and the uncertainties on the area of regulation, many of which are still being defined,” explains the group.
In particular, the project envisages a spin-off to create two large groups that, as a result of the proposed operation, would be listed on the Spanish equity markets with clearly differentiated company profiles while retaining the same shareholding composition, at least initially.
With these annual results, the Board of Directors will propose to the General Meeting an additional dividend of EUR 0.50 per share, which will be added to the first and second interim dividend of 2022 of EUR 0.30 and EUR 0.40 per share respectively, paid in cash during the year.
For example, the total remuneration to the shareholder responsible for the 2022 results will amount to 1.2 euros per share, as stated in Naturgy’s Strategic Plan 2021-2025. The ‘pay-out’ will amount to 70%.
During the 2022 financial year, the company invested a total of 1,907 million euros, almost 30% more than in the same period. The distribution networks and the renewable energy activity accounted for more than 90% of all growth investments (almost 1,200 million euros).
Currently adding more than 5.5 GW of operating capacity by the end of 2022, it has about thirty wind farms and photovoltaic plants under construction in Spain, equivalent to more than 1 GW of additional capacity, which is expected to be delivered over the coming months.
Source: La Verdad
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