Enagas logs profit hike as LNG business grows

Spanish LNG terminal operator Enagas reported a 9.4 percent profit rise in the first half as its regasification plants continued to operate as usual during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The company said profit after tax in the January-June period increased to 236.3 million euros ($276.9 million). This compares to 216.1 million euros in the same period a year ago.

To remind, net profit in the first quarter increased to 119 million euros from 104 million euros last year.

Enagas says it remains “on track” for the planned 440 million euros profit for the full year of 2020.

Like all other energy companies, Enagas has also been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic implementing cost saving measures.

However, on the operational side these were “limited” as the Spanish company launched several contingency plans in early March.

The measures helped the Spanish gas network to operate as usual with “no labor, technical or operational incidents”, it said.

Enagas operates 12,000 kilometres of high-pressure gas pipelines and 19 compressor stations in Spain.

Spanish natural gas demand considerably fell in April during the state of emergency but it started slowly to pick up since the end of May.

According to Enagas, conventional demand at the end of June already rose to around 92 percent of first-half 2019 volumes.

Besides the gas pipeline network, Enagas’ regasification plants have also operated as usual logging higher numbers when compared to last year.

Enagas has four regasification plants in Barcelona, Huelva, Cartagena and Gijon. It also owns 50% of the BBG regasification plant in Bilbao and 72.5% of the Sagunto plant.

During the January-June period, the terminals regasified 117.5 TWh, a rise of of 18 percent year-on-year.

In addition, the Spanish plants unloaded a total of 126 LNG carriers, up by 12.5 percent. ​

Enagas also said LNG truck loading business showed a rise of 4 percent reaching 6.6 TWh in the first half.

Enagas continues to work on promoting LNG, biogas and hidrogen as fuel in Spain in order to slash emissions in the maritime and vehicle transport sector.

Spanish ports hosted last year a total of 195 LNG ship bunkering operations, three times more then the year before.

These numbers continued to rise this year as LNG bunkering becomes more flexible through truck, ship and plant solutions.

Enagas recently received a boost from the European Commission’s Connecting Europe Facility for two LNG bunkering projects it is planning in Barcelona and Algericas.

These developments are part of the CORE LNGas hive project, LNGHIVE2, coordinated by the Spanish company.

The Barcelona project includes the construction of a 5,000-cbm LNG bunkering barge with a total budget of 41 million euros.

The Algericas project will have a 12,500-cbm barge and the total costs will reach 56 million euros.

Enagas said the Barcelona project received a 9.15 million euros grant while the Algericas development secured 11.29 million euros.

The Spanish company said that the EU granted 100 percent of the subsidies requested for the projects.