• Nortegas has closed the year with an EBITDA of €174 million, in line with those obtained the previous year (€178 million) and with earnings of €216 million (€223 million in 2019).
• The drop in industrial demand due to Covid-19 and the rise in temperatures had a very limited financial impact, while Nortegas’s operations were never affected.
• Nortegas is working on developing complementary businesses to its distribution activity, which highlight its infrastructure and consolidates the company’s role as a key stakeholder in the energy transition.

Nortegas, the second natural gas distributor in Spain, ended 2020, a year marked by the pandemic, with new business areas underway and numerous projects and investments aimed at positioning the company as an asset within the energy transition nationwide.

Nortegas has closed the year with an EBITDA of €174 million, in line with those obtained the previous year (€178 million) and with earnings of €216 million (€223 million in 2019). The net profit excluding extraordinary items stood at €55 million (€57 million in 2019).

Those figures, slightly under those for the previous year, are due to the drop in industrial demand due to Covid-19, along with the costs arising from the bond buyback that the company conducted in July 2020, and the rise in temperatures. Even though the situation had a very limited impact financially, operations were not at all impacted.

Despite the complications of a year marked by the pandemic, the company undertook major investments in 2020. Committed to growth, both in its distribution business, to meet the demand for natural gas solutions, and through projects in line with the energy transition and change of paradigm experienced by the sector.

As the result of the investment, the network of connection points increased by 1% year-on-year and reached 1,044,000 points. The growth mainly came from the residential segment and is the result of the company’s commercial and investment effort aimed at establishing new distribution networks and saturating the existing networks.

Growth and new business areas

As part of the implementation of its Strategic Plan, Nortegas is working on the development of businesses complementary to its traditional activity. The aim is to harness the existing infrastructure and convert the company into a key stakeholder in the energy transition, fully in line with the decarbonisation targets.

Nortegas is thus driving numerous projects in order to change society’s future energy with a special focus on promoting projects aimed at the production and injection of renewable gases – such as biomethane and green hydrogen – in the distribution network, mobility and the technology transformation of the sector.

The Group is present in several of the large projects driving green hydrogen as an energy alternative. These include H2SAREA, part of the Basque Hydrogen Corridor (BH2C) initiative, which consists of researching and developing new technological solutions, equipment and components to allow the transformation of the natural gas networks for the distribution of hydrogen in different ratios; and SINATRAH, which explores solutions to develop and exploit advanced systems in the distribution of hydrogen and its efficient use.

Nortegas is part of the consortium that will implement the first green hydrogen plant using the infrastructures of a conventional power plant and the national distribution gas network in Amorebieta (Bizkaia). It has also signed an agreement with Duro Felguera, Alsa and Hunosa to drive this fuel in Asturias. It is also part of the Platform to develop hydrogen in Cantabria.

As regards sustainable mobility, Nortegas has reached an agreement with Repsol to develop a network of supply points of natural gas for vehicles. The first autogas station was opened in Sestao (Bizkaia) in November 2020 and there are a further 6 service stations in the pipeline and being built in different autonomous regions.

On the other hand, in line with the digitalisation strategy being driven by the European Commission and the Spanish Government, Nortegas is a trailblazer in the digitalisation of the gas sector by means of developing smart meter solutions. As part of the Bidegas project, and together with the EVE (Basque Energy Board), Nortegas is running a pilot scheme with 1,000 smart meters in the municipality of Ugao-Miraballes (Bizkia), which is improving the safety and energy efficiency of the facilities.

In keeping with its firm commitment to Sustainability, the Group has recently signed a sustainable loan to fund the new projects through its affiliate Nortegas Green Energy Solutions. This loan has been structured according to the sustainability principles of the Loan Market Association (LMA Sustainability Linked Loan Principles).

Javier Contreras, the company’s managing director, stressed: “Despite the impact of Covid-19, 2020 was a year of intense activity for Nortegas, particularly due to the transformation process in which we are immersed and where we are striving to be an integrated player in the energy transition. The emphasis is on harnessing the existing infrastructure, which is fundamental to make decarbonisation socially and economically viable. We are therefore backing innovation, research and cooperation with other public and private stakeholders, to work with them to grow and drive these new energies.”

Commitment to Society

Nortegas is firmly committed to the communities in which it is present, by means of actions to support the social and economic fabric of the Basque Country, along with detecting needs in the local communities. In this regard, the company regularly organises social actions, including the agreements reached with different local councils to install natural gas heating in municipal housing or pipe propane gas to different towns.

During the health emergency, Nortegas implemented different initiatives in order to minimise the social and economic impact of the pandemic. These included facilities to ensure emergency gas supplies to hospitals and field units, cash payments to suppliers, applying a plan to facilitate the cash flow for installers during the crisis period and flexible payment terms of the LPG bills for vulnerable entities.

Nortegas regularly supports the food banks of the Basque Country, Cantabria and Asturias, to which it donated 61,500 kg of food in 2020. This year, the distributor is continuing to support food banks and is working with other entities such as DYA, the social and healthcare support association, by donating defibrillators and biological protection material for its volunteers