January 24 (SeeNews) - Slovenian energy group Petrol [LJE:PETG] has reduced the amount of investments planned for 2023 to 70 million euro ($76.3 million) from 135 million euro due to the impact from the regulation of fuel prices in Slovenia and Croatia, it said.
Petrol plans to allocate up to 30% of the investments planned for 2023 to energy transition projects, it said in a filing with the Ljubljana Stock Exchange on Monday.
The negative impact of price regulation on the group's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) would be 82.4 million euro, of which the largest share, as much as 62.3 million euro, is attributable to the regulation of motor fuel prices in Croatia, Petrol said.
Petrol submitted claims for compensations worth 106 million euro in Slovenia and 56 million euro in Croatia for the damage caused by the energy price regulations in both countries and also sent a notification to the European Commission (EC), the energy group noted.
Earlier this month, Petrol said it estimates that it swung to a net loss of 12.1 million euro last year, compared to a net profit of 158.3 million euro recorded in 2021.
Slovenia's government capped the wholesale price of regular grade petrol and diesel in March to shield the market from price fluctuations caused by the war in Ukraine. The cap was modified several times throughout the year and currently stands at 1.623 euro per litre of diesel and 1.464 euro per litre of petrol.
In Croatia, a fuel price cap was first introduced in February and was lowered to 10.60 kuna ($1.50/1.41 euro) per litre of petrol and 11.59 kuna per litre of diesel in December, even though the price of oil on the world market had fallen.
($ = 0.91755 euro)
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