Renfe got a negative result before taxes of 108.6 million euros in 2022, which represents a reduction of 70% compared to the ‘red numbers’ of 362 million euros of the previous year, despite the strong increase registered in the prices of the electricity throughout the exercise.
Specifically, the energy expenditure that it uses to move its trains shot up 79%, up to 630 million euros, which represents 16.4% of all its operating expenses, compared to 11% that it represented in 2021, when electricity prices began to skyrocket. .
In fact, before the pandemic, in 2019, this expense barely represented 7.7% of total costs. Now, it is already the third most important expense in the company’s income statement, only behind the royalties (what you pay to Adif for the use of the roads) and the personal.
The income statement was also weighed down by the impact of the fifth wave of Covid caused by the variant omicron in the first quarter of the year, when revenue from ticket sales was 21.3% below forecast.
In fact, in that quarter, the company already accumulated losses of 95 million euros, the bulk of the ‘red numbers’ of 109 million with which it closed the whole of the 2022 financial year.
income from traffics, as reported after the board meeting in which these results were discussed, were 3,788 million euros, representing an increase of 28.7%. In the part of Travellers grew by 43.5% and in the goodsanother 15.7%.
To offset the impact of energy prices, Renfe launched a plan to cost containment which allowed it to reduce its non-electricity costs by 368.1 million, which includes personnel, fees, train maintenance, on-board services, consumption of materials or projects, among other items.
Regarding the gross operating result (Ebitda), the data that best reflects the operational evolution of the company, multiplied by more than four times, up to 292 million euros, compared to 67 million the previous year.
