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Oil price drop pushes Spain’s Repsol into loss

Spanish oil giant Repsol said Thursday it suffered a second-quarter loss of 1.9 billion euros ($2.2 bn) due to the collapse of oil and gas prices and lower production due to the coronavirus epidemic.

Over the first half net losses reached nearly 2.5 billion euros due to the downward revision of the value of its inventories as the price of oil tumbled along with demand as consumers were stuck at home due to coronavirus lockdowns.

After falling at the open, Respol’s shares were trading slightly higher on Spain’s IBEX-35 index of leading shares, up 0.8 percent by 1000 GMT.

Repsol said the loss came in the context “of the global pandemic, the collapse of crude and gas prices and the extraordinary fall in demand”.

During the period, when Spain imposed a national lockdown in mid-March to curb the spread of the virus, petrol stations sales had fallen by 48 percent, it said.

The group said its adjusted first-half profit, which didn’t take into account its reserves, had better reflected its activity, reaching 189 million euros.

During the second quarter, it posted an adjusted net loss of 258 million euros.

With the pandemic far from over, Repsol is planning to reduce its operating costs by 450 million euros and will forgo numerous investments to the tune of some 1.1 billion euros.

Repsol says it has nearly 10 billion euros in liquidity and managed to raise three billion euros through bond issues during the first half of the year.

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