JSC “Latvijas Gāze”: Audited financial results of JSC “Latvijas Gāze” Group for 2022

JSC “Latvijas Gāze” Group’s net profit for 2022 is 39 million EUR, and net turnover is 689.8 million EUR, which is 31% higher than in 2021.

The Latvijas Gāze group has completed a challenging financial year 2022. Under the influence of geopolitical events and regulatory changes, the European natural gas markets saw demand substantially surpass supply, which lead to a rapid price rise and fluctuations. Latvia’s natural gas supply, while technically not directly connected to the Western Europe, entirely depends on economic and political developments not just in the Baltics but also in Europe and globally, as the natural gas price in Latvia is linked to the Western European natural gas hub indexes. Despite this, JSC “Latvijas Gāze” (the Company) continued successful operations, ensuring an uninterrupted supply of gas to its customers, including fulfilling its obligations as Public Trader towards household clients as stipulated in the Energy Law.

Taking into account that compared to 2021 the amount of natural gas consumed in Latvia decreased by more than 30% in 2022, the amount of natural gas transmitted in the distribution network significantly decreased. This affected the financial results of the Company’s subsidiary JSC "Gaso" - JSC "Gaso" ended the year 2022 with a loss of EUR 1.8 million, as opposed to a profit of EUR 11.5 million in 2021.

In 2022, the Company sold 6 993 GWh of natural gas to customers in Latvia and abroad. Compared to 2021, sales volumes have decreased by 53%. Sales volume decrease is attributable to some market participants’ choice against buying Russian-origin gas already before 1 January 2023, as well as customers have reconsidered their consumption habits of natural gas amid high price environment, including switching to alternative energy resources.

In 2022, the Company’s shareholders adopted a decision on launching the Company’s reorganisation process or the reduction of its share capital. The Board started and continued working on the assessment of multiple scenarios of further governance of JSC “Gaso”. As a result, a decision has been made to sell the JSC “Gaso”, with the process set to be completed in 2023. In the consolidated and Company’s standalone financial report for 2022, the investment in subsidiary and accordingly the subsidiary’s assets and liabilities are presented as assets and liabilities of assets held for sale. In the statement of profit or loss, the operations of the discontinued natural gas distribution segment are presented separately from the continuing operations of the trading segment. In order to present the assets held for sale at fair value, the Company’s and consolidated statement of profit or loss includes an impairment of 72 million EUR.

The audited annual report is published in iXBRL format in accordance with the reporting requirements of the Common European Electronic Format (ESEF). In accordance with the requirements of the ESEF, the consolidated data of the financial statements are marked with XBRL tags. ESEF financial statements are available in a ZIP file. The annual report is available in PDF file attached to this release.

JSC “Latvijas Gāze” Group will publish its Unaudited Consolidated Interim Condensed Financial Statements for 3 months of 2023 on 25 May 2023.

JSC “Latvijas Gāze”

Chairman of the Board

Aigars Kalvītis

Attachments