The CEO of Repsol, Josu Jon Imaz, celebrated this Thursday the end of the extraordinary tax on energy companies, which declined this Wednesday due to the lack of parliamentary support from Junts and the PNV. In a conference with analysts to present Repsol’s results, Imaz pointed out that they are “clearly positive news.”
“Fortunately the problem is over,” Imaz said about the tax, which expires in December and which the PSOE and Sumar had agreed to extend by reformulating it. “It is time now to focus on the future and the opportunities ahead.” This is “a positive decision that allows us to move forward with the industrial investments we have planned in Spain,” said the executive of the oil company, the company most affected by this tax, which had threatened to take investments planned in Tarragona to Portugal. . In its current conception, the tax has had a cost of nearly 800 million for the oil company: 444 million in 2023 and 335 million in 2024.
The former leader of the PNV has spoken of “normalization” of the market after the upheaval of 2022 and 2023, with the invasion of Ukraine, and has celebrated that Congress has processed a proposal that will “solve in structural terms” the problem of the billion-dollar fraud VAT on hydrocarbons in Spain. He is confident that its effect “will be seen in the coming months as a premium on refining margins.”
The largest Spanish oil company reduced its profits by 35.7% between January and September, to 1,792 million euros, in a context marked by low hydrocarbon prices, lower refining margins and political instability on a global scale. The group’s adjusted net result, which measures the progress of the businesses, fell 29.7%, to 2,684 million.
The company indicated that the net result includes a corporate income tax with a global effective rate of 34%. It estimates its “tax contribution” in Spain at more than 6,500 million, out of a global total of 9,462 million in the period. Its gross operating result (Ebitda) fell 22.6%, to 5,565 million.
With these results, the company has announced that it is accelerating its shareholder remuneration policy with the distribution of a cash dividend of 0.475 gross euros per share in January 2025, compared to 0.4 gross euros per share the previous year. . It represents an increase of 19%.
Organic investments reached 4,307 million until September, 25.6% more. In the low-carbon generation area they stood at 2,075 million, with an increase of 38.6%. In Spain, the energy company expects to reach 4 gigawatts of renewables installed by the end of the year
Imaz highlighted in a statement that the group is “taking important steps” in the execution of its strategic objectives, “aimed at a profitable and fair energy transition.” And he highlighted that the company “firmly defends that its industrial and energy activities are engines of wealth, employment and prosperity that deserve institutional support.”
The group’s net debt at the end of September stood at 5,532 million, 937 million euros more than at the end of June, mainly due to investments, the July cash dividend, the acquisition of own shares within the repurchase of shares and the second payment of the temporary tax on energy companies in Spain. The leverage ratio stood at 16.4%, compared to 13.8% at the end of the second quarter of this year. Liquidity stood at 9,528 million, including undrawn committed credit lines, which represents 3.10 times the short-term gross debt maturities.
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