PCP to offer public oversight of Galp

On Monday, the PCP announced it would offer public scrutiny of Galp, given that the company’s reported €881m profit in 2022 came “at the expense of the hardships of the vast majority of the population.”

Speaking to Lusa, PCP MP Duarte Alves stressed that Galp’s earnings figures released this Monday show that there are oil groups “really going through times never seen before, with absolutely extraordinary profits.”

“This is Galp’s never-before-seen profit, made at the expense of the hardships of the vast majority of the population, through price increases over the past year, (…) in which Galp and other oil companies have won. from government inaction on margins,” he defended.

Against this backdrop, Duarte Alves announced that his party would introduce a bill proposing public control of Galp, given that the privatization of this company was “a financial disaster for the Portuguese state.”

“It is good to remember that the privatization of Galp was carried out for a total of 1,500 million euros. A billion euros in Galp’s profit this year alone shows how ruinous the sale of Galp was to the public interest,” he stressed. .

Duarte Alves specified that the PCP will propose to create a regime that will facilitate this social control, “based on the current share that is already owned by the state, which is 7%, and in the sense of becoming the main shareholder.”

“To do this, he will have to strengthen his position as a shareholder, take control of the company and put it in defense of national interests,” he said.

The PCP MP accused Galp shareholders of protecting their “immediate interests” rather than “national interests”, citing as an example the closure of the Matosinhos refinery, which he said played a “fundamental role in the production of some petroleum by-products”. , which were produced only at this refinery.

“Gulp is making this profit after years of not investing in the country and basic infrastructure. (…) Therefore, we believe that, taking into account these options that have been taken, the destruction of the company, the degradation of the company, while increasing profits in an extraordinary way, (…) public control is necessary,” he emphasized.

Along with this public scrutiny, Duarte Alves also advocated the need for government intervention in the profit margins of the oil companies to allow “the fuel prices that all Portuguese pay to be lower”.

“This is the measure that was lacking and the political courage that the government lacked to confront great interests,” he accused.

Duarte Alves said the executive has the “necessary tools for secondary intervention” despite the fact that the Assembly of the Republic rejected several PCP proposals to control fuel prices.

“There is a law that the government itself has presented to the Assembly of the Republic, which allows intervention in banks only subject to the conclusion of ERSE. (…) We believe that the government needed to use these tools, which it did what it did not, because it submitted to the interests of these large economic groups,” he stressed.

According to a statement released this Monday by the Securities Markets Commission (CMVM), Galp recorded a profit of 881 million euros in 2022, almost double that of the previous year.

This value is comparable to the 457 million euros that Galp registered in 2021.

According to the statement, the oil company achieved EBITDA (earnings before taxes, interest, depreciation and amortization) last year of 3,849 million euros, an increase of 66% in the same terms.

Net “capex” (investments) reached €1,266 million, being “mainly invested in upstream projects, namely [projetos de] Bacalhau, Tupi and Iracema in Brazil, as well as the expansion of the “portfolio” of renewable energy, including the acquisition of a position in Titan Solar.

The company also generated adjusted operating cash flow (OCF) of €2,788 million, up 50% from 2021.