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    Polish PGNiG Has Record-Breaking Year

Summary

Rising prices and rising production and sales helped Poland towards a record year,

by: William Powell

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Natural Gas & LNG News, Europe, Corporate, Exploration & Production, Import/Export, Investments, Financials, News By Country, Poland

Polish PGNiG Has Record-Breaking Year

Polish state upstream firm and gas importer PGNiG reported pre-tax, interest, depreciation and amortisation earnings (Ebitda) of zloty 6.58bn ($1.9bn) and a profit of zloty 2.92bn last year – its all-time highest results, it said March 14. Ebitda was up 10% year on year and profit up 24%. This was despite growing by 8%, at zloty 35.86bn.

CEO Piotr Wozniak said the figures had never been so good and were partly due to oil and gas prices that were "markedly higher than in 2016... We are actively implementing our strategy, we sold over 2.5bn m³ more gas than the year before." Gas sales rose 10% to 26.79bn m³, which included PGNiG's gas sales to Ukraine of almost 730mn m³. Earlier this month the company noted how its dependency on Russian gas imports was being reduced year on year

PGNiG upstream sales in 2017 rose by 16% to zloty 6.12bn and Ebitda rose by 75%, buoyed by gas production of 4.54bn m³ , up by 2% on 2016.  The company has equity production in both Poland and Norway.

Wholesale gas sales expanded by 55%. Sales of gas to retail customers grew by almost 0.5bn m3. However, higher oil prices had a negative impact on the cost of gas delivered on long-term import contracts. Lower contribution of the trade and storage segment to Ebitda was caused by the segment’s non-current asset impairment of zloty 364mn. 

Downstream, the company distributed 7% more gas: 11.65bn m³ but revenues rose only 5% and operating expenses were also up. Revenues from heat and electricity rose 3%, while the segment’s Ebitda rose by 11%. The volumes of heat and electricity sold (own production) were up by 6% and 8%, respectively, on the previous year.

New industrial clients include ArcelorMittal, Euroglas, Grupa Azoty, KGHM and oil refiner Lotos.