Naturgy, the company led by Francisco Reynes, has successfully closed tax year 2018: the energy multinational presented a transformation roadmap to 2022 in the market and kicked off its action plan for achieving the goals set through four value-creating pillars.
Francisco Reynes stated that “the agreement with Sonatrach and the new investments in renewable energies in Brazil and Australia are prominent examples of our positive progress at the international level”. In 2018, the energy company accelerated its efficiency plan, aimed at achieving 500 million euros annually in cost reduction by 2022. Tax year 2018 was closed with annual recurrent efficiencies worth 110 million euros, which required 180 million euros in capture costs. In the last six months, Naturgy has moved forward in the optimization of its capital structure, with local currency issuance in Brazil, Mexico and Chile, amortizing approximately 1,700 million euros in bank debt at the corporate level.
Francisco Reynés, the company’s CEO, emphasized that they had “laid the foundations for undertaking the transformation of our group, repositioning our business in the face of the energy transition, and achieving the goals set in our new roadmap. The results of tax year 2018 show positive development in our business, but the more substantial improvement in results will be seen during the next few years, as the execution of the plan progresses”.
Thanks to this new strategy, value has already started to take form in the company’s results account, only six months after presenting its 2018-2022 Strategic Plan in the market, with an ordinary EBITDA of 4,413 million euros (12% more compared to the previous year) and an ordinary net profit of 1,245 million euros (57% more than in 2017).
The business results of South American Infrastructures (mainly Brazil, Chile and Argentina) were affected by the negative evolution of the exchange rate, with an impact of 171 million euros on this business division’s EBITDA, which decreased to 846 million euros in ordinary terms (-3.5% over 2017).
In the case of the Northern Latin-American Infrastructures (Mexico and Panama), the impact of currencies represented 16 million euros on the EBITDA, which reached 275 million euros in ordinary terms (-3.2% over the previous year).
During the last tax year, the gas supply contract renewal with the Algerian company Sonatrach until 2030 and the favorable ruling of ICSID, validated in the United Kingdom, in a process initiated by Unión Fenosa Gas (UFG) against Egypt, hoping to reach an integral agreement that reestablishes the investment value in the country, aside from this arbitral process.
In addition, the business results of EMEA Infrastructures increased the EBITDA by 2.2%, reaching 1,849 million euros, thanks to the good behavior of electricity and gas networks and Europe Maghreb Pipeline Limited (EMPL).
