July 23 (Reuters) \u2013 Spanish energy group Repsol\u00a0expects refining margins to stay high next year as geopolitical tensions around \u200cthe Gulf region and Russia persist, it said on Thursday, after reporting that its second-quarter profit tripled on stronger margins and oil prices.<\/p>\n
Supply constraints linked to intermittent disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries have fuelled price volatility and pushed up \u200bmargins for European refiners.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m convinced there are solid reasons to support really good refining margins \u2013 not only in \u200b2026, but also in 2027,\u201d Repsol CEO Josu Jon Imaz told analysts.<\/p>\n
He cited outages at \u2060Russian refineries as an equivalent or even greater risk factor than Hormuz for the European middle distillates market, as \u200bthey affected 45%-50% of Russia\u2019s refining capacity.<\/p>\n
Imaz also pointed to resilient global fuel demand, strong consumption in Spain and Portugal, low \u200binventories in major markets and the need for refinery maintenance underpinning his positive outlook on margins.<\/p>\n
If the Hormuz crisis were to worsen, Repsol had enough crude, storage and production capacity to cover all of Spain\u2019s kerosene needs, Imaz said, adding that the company could even \u200bhave an excess of 30% of its production available to supply other customers if those companies\u2019 providers run out of \u200bjet fuel.<\/p>\n
Shares in Repsol were up 3.6% at 1340 GMT, bucking a 1.3% drop in Spain\u2019s blue-chip index <.IBEX>, after its results beat expectations.<\/p>\n
PRODUCTION RAMP-UP<\/p>\n
Repsol\u2019s \u200cadjusted net \u2060income rose to \u20ac1.84 billion ($2.1 billion) between April-June, compared to the \u20ac598 million posted in the second quarter of 2025, beating analysts\u2019 consensus forecast of \u20ac1.64 billion.<\/p>\n
Imaz said the company expected production to reach around 600,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by the end of 2026, helped by a ramp-up of the Pikka project in Alaska by the end of September, improvements in \u200bVenezuela, growth in the Marcellus \u200bShale and higher output from \u2060the Leon-Castile fields.<\/p>\n
OCTOBER BUYBACK<\/p>\n
Spain\u2019s main refiner and oil producer will launch a third share buyback in October and keep total shareholder distributions within its 30%-40% cash-flow-from-operations target, it said.<\/p>\n
Imaz \u200bsaid the size of the October buyback would be decided then, based on macro conditions \u200band visibility \u2060on full-year performance. The company increased its second 2026 share buyback to \u20ac500 million, in addition to the \u20ac350 million programme already completed.<\/p>\n
He said Repsol wasn\u2019t planning any alternative shareholder-return mechanisms such as special dividends and ruled out a listing of its upstream business in \u2060the United \u200bStates this year.<\/p>\n
Net debt by the end of June fell to \u20ac3.67 billion from \u20ac4.8 \u200bbillion euros at the end of March, helped by strong cash generation and the deconsolidation of debt linked to the sale of a Spanish renewables \u200bportfolio.<\/p>\n
($1 = 0.8749 euros)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 23 (Reuters) \u2013 Spanish energy group Repsol\u00a0expects refining margins to stay high next year as geopolitical tensions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[127],"class_list":["post-80465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-repsol","tag-repsol"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}