Repsol CEO Josu Jon Imaz celebrated on Thursday the end of the extraordinary tax on energy companies, which was reduced this Wednesday due to the lack of parliamentary support from Junts and the PNV. During a conference with analysts to present Repsol’s results, Imaz stressed that it was “clearly positive news”.
“Fortunately the problem is resolved,” Imaz said of the tax, which expires in December and which the PSOE and Sumar had agreed to extend by reformulating it. “Now is the time to focus on the future and the opportunities that lie ahead. » This is a “positive decision which allows us to move forward with the industrial investments that we have planned in Spain”, declared the director of the oil company, the company most affected by this tax, which had threatened to transfer to Portugal the investments planned in Tarragona. . In its current design, the tax cost the oil company nearly 800 million: 444 million in 2023 and 335 million in 2024.
The former leader of the PNV spoke of “normalization” of the market after the upheavals of 2022 and 2023, with the invasion of Ukraine, and celebrated that Congress had processed a proposal that “will resolve in structural terms” the problem billion dollar VAT fraud on hydrocarbons in Spain. He is convinced that its effect “will be seen in the months to come as a bonus on refining margins”.
Spain’s largest 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, falling refining margins and political instability. on a global scale. The group’s adjusted net profit, which measures the progress of the businesses, fell by 29.7%, to 2,684 million.
The company said net income includes corporate tax at an overall effective rate of 34%. It estimates its “tax contribution” in Spain at more than 6.5 billion, out of a global total of 9.462 million over the period. Its gross operating profit (Ebitda) fell by 22.6%, to 5,565 million.
Building on these results, the company announced that it was accelerating its shareholder remuneration policy with the distribution of a cash dividend of 0.475 euros gross per share in January 2025, compared to 0.4 euros gross per share the previous year. This represents an increase of 19%.
Organic investments reached 4.307 million through September, 25.6% more. In the area of low-carbon production, they amounted to 2,075 million, an increase of 38.6%. In Spain, the energy company hopes to reach 4 gigawatts of renewable energy installed by the end of the year
Imaz stressed in a press release that the group is “taking important steps” in implementing its strategic objectives, “aiming for a profitable and equitable energy transition”. And he stressed that the company “firmly defends that its industrial and energy activities are engines of wealth, employment and prosperity which deserve institutional support”.
The group’s net debt at the end of September amounted to 5,532 million, or 937 million euros more than at the end of June, mainly due to investments, the July cash dividend, the acquisition of shares own funds in the context of the share buyback and the second installment of the temporary tax on energy companies in Spain. The leverage ratio stands at 16.4%, compared to 13.8% at the end of the second quarter of this year. Liquidity amounts to 9,528 million, including undrawn confirmed credit lines, which represents 3.10 times the gross maturities of short-term debt.
