...be recorded and will be available for rewatch shortly after the call. Let me now introduce you to our hosts, Vice Chairman of the Management Board and CEO, Jānis Vība, and Member of the Management Board and CFO, Vita Čirjevska. Jānis, Vita, the floor is all yours.
Thank you. Hello. Hello, dear employees, investors, partners, and everybody who is interested in the developments of our company. Today, together with Vita, we will walk you through some highlights of the first half of 2025. Let's go straight into the usual update on what is happening on the energy markets across the world. Let's start maybe with fuel. We see that geopolicy, of course, made some significant impact on oil prices in the first half of 2025. We see that in the beginning of January, actually, oil prices were above EUR 80 per barrel, which was actually quite high. Mostly, it was coming from the fact that markets believe that economic development will be good in the coming months. The demand for oil will also be high, and that was actually pushing these prices up.
At the same time, of course, the bottom of these prices came in late April, beginning of May, when, because of Donald Trump's announced tariffs, obviously, everybody was shocked, not only the stock market, but also the oil market and investors and everybody. Everybody was also afraid that the economy will get hurt, and that's why also oil demand will go down. Respectively, oil price also went down to EUR 58. Then, obviously, these tariffs were extended, also lowered, and all those discussions. In the end, basically, the oil price is now roughly around EUR 65 up to EUR 70 per barrel most of the time, which is more or less, let's say, the usual level if compared to the previous year. At the same time, of course, it's also important to note that geopolitical tensions are still in place.
Obviously, the most important points are with regards to the Russia-Ukraine war and also the Israel and Iran war, which in a way was short, but at the same time, quite intensive. That specific time made some quite, let's say, big impact on the oil markets. Another point which is important is to note that OPEC countries, so the countries which are exporting oil, have already agreed for three straight months in the second quarter to increase oil supply, which obviously basically limits, let's say, this pressure on oil prices and helps to have oil pricing relatively, let's say, at a low level. That's on oil. On natural gas, I guess some points to mention is that winter in Europe was actually quite cold. Not always it is happening so. Because of this cold winter, the natural gas pricing and demand obviously was quite high in Q1.
In Q2, mainly because of seasonality and also because of lower demand in the Asian markets, natural gas pricing went down by roughly 20%. Another point which is worth mentioning is that we see a continuous trend on decreasing Russian natural gas imports to the EU. This Russian natural gas is mostly now offset by liquefied natural gas coming from the U.S.A. and other regional markets. Most probably, it will continue this trend also in the future because, as obviously most of you know, in this deal between the U.S.A. and the EU, one big factor is the commitment from the EU to still buy LNG from the U.S.A. in the next, let's say, years.
Probably the most interesting market was actually happening in electricity in the first half, mostly because obviously all Baltic states are so disconnected from this BRELL network, which is basically the Russian electricity network, and joined the European energy system, which was a long, important, and complicated project. It was executed quite successfully. Still, because of all the, let's say, pressure and rumors and everything, it had some impact also on electricity pricing in Q1. Now in Q2, we see quite a big drop in electricity pricing, mostly because of two reasons. The first one is that this electricity cable, which is connecting Estonia and Finland, and which was damaged back in late 2024, now it is restored in June. Again, Finnish electricity is able to flow, let's say, at an acceptable level to Baltic states and therefore, it is able also to stabilize this electricity price.
On renewable electricity, it's also interesting to note that this trend is continuing. Already 85% of Latvian electricity, for example, in June is generated from renewable energy, which is obviously the sun is shining and everything is good. We see that this electricity pricing in a day is actually very low. It's also, of course, limiting this pressure on overall electricity pricing in Latvia. That's a quick run through the energy markets. Now let's go just to remind you what are our strategic goals for the company. We have actually seven strategic goals. As you can see, it relates to a number of stations, some financials, and other goals. Today, as usual, we will try to walk through all of those goals step by step and to illustrate how are we doing in each of those goals and how, let's say, we are good at trending towards this 2027 benchmark.
We also have an ESG topic. Before going into these goals, which is also somehow incorporated in ESG, Vita will give you more details about the ESG topic.
As we already presented in the last webinar during 2024, we were preparing quite heavily for the regulated or audited ESG part in Latvia, but then the regulation was adjusted and the audit is not to be held in this year. Anyhow, this has shifted our understanding company-wise in a new level. Although there might not be like 100% new KPIs or activities we are doing right now, we actually have shaped everything in these three directions: ESG, environment, social governance, to understand where we move, how we move, and adjusted KPIs where it's necessary. During 2025, we already measure our KPIs quarterly, and we monitor how we are shifting towards more sustainable development of the company. In our company, we understand sustainable development not only CO2-wise or environment-wise, but really balanced sustainable development. In the E or environment section, we have two streams of KPIs.
One is several of them are related to CO2 emission reduction. Here we are highly dependent also on the government activities and on legislation activities that are now happening behind us and ETS2 also changes in the future. We are still waiting for the major decisions to be made and regulation to be in place. At the same time, we do our own job and we do develop the network with reduced emission refueling stations. In 10 stations, we have CNG option for our clients. In 26 stations, we have electric charging option for our clients. We see that this direction is right and the investments will continue in the next years as well. Our next stream is waste management and optimization.
By now, or until 2024, we did the basic waste management and we also monitored all the activities in the market and then we did the best we could. Right now, we have really focusedly in this first half of the year analyzed where are our waste streams, how to manage them, how to give the best offer also to engage clients as well as our employees in waste reduction. Right now, we see that we are targeting in reduced waste, although we have expanded our network. The second big section is a social part or people-to-people in our company according to our values. Here we see that there are people, employee side, people on the client side, and people also from our supplier side. We have five balanced KPIs. The main shift in this first half of the year has been in the loyalty offer to the clients.
We have changed the loyalty offer or the way we offer our loyalty products to attract more customers, to have a better offer for them, and also to attract new customers to our portfolio. The third section, governance side, we have done two big shifts. One is we have established our own supplier code of ethics or code of conduct. We not only do ourselves the best we can governance-wise, but also we have defined the rules for our suppliers, how we would like them to operate in the market as well. We have approved this new supplier code of ethics, and we implement this supplier code of ethics also for our suppliers since June 1 in the new agreements.
Business operation-wise, we have also not only established some rules in general and understand it at some top management level, but we also try to incorporate it in all levels of our employees. We have established a training module that consists of several older blocks, code of ethics, GDPR, AML sections, but we also continue developing the training module and monitor the activity and training engagement of the employees right now and in the next chapters to come. That's the sustainability.
Okay. Let's go to the first strategic goal on station networks. Again, just to recall or remind, in 2024, it was a very challenging year because we launched nine new stations. It's actually quite a big amount, maybe even the first one in Latvian history where we could launch such, let's say, a number of new stations. Obviously, this is a background needed to understand why maybe in 2025 we are a bit slower on new stations. This investment is not maybe so huge as in 2024. Still, in the first half of 2025, we have launched one good and beautiful station in Salaspils. That's a place which is basically close to the Estonian border. It was a quite important place for us simply because going from Riga to Estonia, there were almost no our stations.
This is now, let's say, solved, and all the trucks going in A1 road are now able to go to us and fill. Another thing is that there is a beautiful city in Latvia, which is called Kuldīga, which is the city where we have not been yet. In the end of June, we also launched the process of starting to build this station. We expect that this station will be completed by November this year. Additionally, we will tell a bit more later, but also we have reviewed our profitability of our network and made some, let's say, adjustments. Two places are now exited, but they did not sell fuel. We will tell a bit more later. I guess the key point here is simply to stress that there is a big amount of new stations developed over one year and a half.
We simply need some time for them to, let's say, pick up this full operational capacity, which obviously later should translate in good financial numbers in the coming months. That's on the network. Now let's go to employees.
Yeah. This great shift in the network, the fuel stations also arise new teams and new locations and new training and new people to be onboarded. Since the first half of the past year, we grew by almost 11% or by 90 employees. Actually, if we look at all of the space of development or since the very beginning of 2024, we have increased our employee count by 22%. This has been a great shift. At the same time, we have targeted to give the best offer to our existing employees, but also need to onboard and train new employees to have really a smooth transition in teams and also a smooth experience for our clients. We are really proud and happy about evaluation in the market.
Already in 2025, we have been evaluated as a top sixth employer in, let's say, the biggest ranking in Latvia that we have, the CV Online top employer. Our target strategically was to be in a top 10, and we are there. Also, we want to stress that in this year, we got the eighth place in CV Market LVs, best employers ranking. This is a very good sign for us. We evaluated a lot because this is a good stream of new employees for us. If we have this assessment in a very good level, we are happy about this evaluation. At the same time, streaming new employees in and trying to give the best value for our existing teams, we also try to work on employees' offer.
We try to update all the benefit package we are giving to our employees and update with the new products we have and the new business lines we have. We try to work on it consistently. Also, this period has been a change in our offices, two main offices that we operate Virši from, Aizkraukle and Riga, where we changed the office in Riga recently in July and also updated the training environment and the office in Aizkraukle. That's for the employee.
Okay. Let's go to the next goal. The next goal, just to remind, is that we want to be the number one player in the alternative fuel market in Latvia. In our mind, we are already there, but of course, we need to keep the job to remain there. I guess in context of that, it is important to note that the demand for alternative fuel types in Latvia continues to increase. There is a specific law which we hope will be passed in 2026, which is called the Transport Energy Law, which will specifically put some, let's say, criteria on fuel traders, how much renewable fuel should be sold, what should be these emissions reduced, and so on. The reason why we want this law actually in place is because we are fully ready to meet those demands of this law. By meeting the requirements, I mean two things.
The first thing is natural gas or CNG, which we currently sell in 10 locations. We see that the trend is continuing to be good. Year over year, we have increased more than 20% in terms of CNG sold. Also important to note is that this CNG network obviously is usable later on for selling of biomethane. This is at least in our mind a good, rentable, or profitable segment to be at. On the light transport segment, we are seeing these electric vehicle charging stations. Currently, we have 26. We have opened two stations in this first half of this year. Still, overall level of electricity cars in Latvia is quite low, only slightly above 1% of total market. At the same time, we see that those who are going and making discharging in our stations, they're actually doing it quite often.
We are even at least ahead of our, let's say, business plan expectations in terms of this segment. I guess it's important to note this is, of course, the, let's say, biggest project for this year in terms of investments. It is a EUR 15 million project which we are currently working on. This biomethane plant, where all the, let's say, agreements for selling biomethane, for buying resources, for also buying technology and everything are now concluded. The construction works are going quite according to the plan. We are seeing that, let's say, in the first half of 2026, this will be the time when the biomethane will be produced. Obviously, later on, given the business plan which we have for this project, it will also leave a very strong impact on our group financials. Next is, again, just to remind, we want to go this so-called business diversification goal.
What it means, it means that we want to increase gross profit coming from non-fuel segments in our overall profit. As you can see, we are steadily doing it in the last couple of years, especially if you look at this shop or convenience store segment. We already see that this year was the first one when in the first half of the year, gross profit was actually exceeding 50% in overall gross profit of the group, coming from convenience stores. Most probably, this trend should continue. Even despite that, we are still, of course, growing in the fuel segment. We are gaining market share, but the shop segment is actually growing even faster. We like it simply because of the higher margins and no credit distance. Yeah, we will continue probably in that direction.
Yeah. The financial measures we have in our strategic goals are EBITDA as for the shareholders' value and the net profits. As for the first one, we will later on discuss more on the performance of each and every section of the business sides. We have actually grown in this period of time in gross profits by 8.6% or EUR 1.6 million. We have had a good performance in the fuel and convenience store products. Gross profit-wise, energy gross profit has been worse than in the past year because we had the changes in the market and the regulation. This has incurred the additional costs, but we see it as a periodic change. These measures are to be tackled in the next periods.
In general terms, if we see the gross profit performance and also the customer's activity, we need to understand that this increase was expected by the increase in our fuel station network. We also must admit that this period of time, there has been a sharp competition for the clients in the market, as actually the customer activity is very cautious in this period of time. In the last year, we actually in Latvia experienced a recession. GDP fell by 0.4%. This year also, the Bank of Latvia expected a bit higher increase, but in June, it has been adjusted a bit lower and is expected to be 1.2% the year growth. We feel really this competition for the customer and customer cautiousness in the market a lot.
Let's say we see that there is a higher potential in the next part of the year because the stations have been set up recently in the new places, and they are just growing up their market share. At the same time, we have this push from the macro side. We see that the potential still is really high in the next quarters and also in the next years. As we already discussed in the past slides, we had a big change in the employee side and also in the property side. The biggest increase has been in the cost of sales. This shift in the cost of sales is due to the increase in the employee costs and also to the fuel station maintenance and maintenance costs. These costs are related to the network extension.
These two parts of the costs, they actually constitute around 90% of cost of sales. This cost base is to be held also in the next periods. These costs were not there past year because simply there were not so many stations at that period of time. Right now, we see that the gross profit growth and the expansion in the market and the run-up of the new stations should tackle these increased costs in the next periods. In general, EBITDA level has been kept at the same level. We see it as a good mark for this period, and we see the high potential in the next periods to come. Net profit-wise, in the next slide, we see the first section, EBITDA, the effect is neutral.
We could also say that the tax that is related to dividends distributed and also income and expense from the financial expenses are neutral for this period because we try to be really cautious about new bigger loans. At the same time, we see that the costs decrease due to the improved rates in this period of time and also Euribor shifting down. These three effects would be rather flat on the net profits, but there are two higher effects. One is positive and not the income, but the much lower cost from the financial instrument value from the electricity instruments because simply in this period of time, the expected cost of the financial instrument price was the shift in the price was not as high as it was in the first period of the year in the past year. The costs are there, but significantly lower.
The one cost level that is quite sustainable in the next period as well is depreciation amortization due to the increased fuel station base. In general, we have a drop in the net profits, but as discussed already in the EBITDA section, there is a good potential for the next periods. We see that this year yet and also in the next periods, there is a potential to shift up and have it sustainable.
Okay. Now we will run through each of those three segments. Let's start with fuel. I guess key points from this slide are firstly to illustrate that the market in fuel sales in Latvia in the first half of 2025 is actually very stagnant. We see that there is only a slight increase, around 1%, in terms of volume sold in the overall market. At the same time, we are doing much better in terms of selling volume, selling by more than 11% more than year-on- year. This is obviously giving us additional market share, which we are taking from other market players. This also, of course, means that nobody wants to lose their market share. There is quite a big fight with promotions, discounts, some marketing activities, and then pricing, especially.
Still, at the same time, if we look at the whole first half of 2025, the overall markups for fuel are more or less okay. Let's see how it goes in the next quarters. Again, I guess it's just to remind that for, let's say, in a very long period, 2025 is the first year when Latvia is actually having more competitive excise tax on diesel fuel compared to Lithuania. What we see is that those Lithuanian customers who filled up in Lithuania, let's say in the last couple of years, are actually not doing it anymore in Lithuania, but they are coming in Latvia. There is some, let's say, additional excise tax revenue in Latvia and also, of course, some benefit from local fuel traders.
Another thing which is important to remind is that 2027 will be the first year when the fuel segment is actually coming under ETS2 system scope. ETS is the emission trading system, which will mean that for fuel traders, for each of, let's say, fuel liters sold, we will, of course, generate some CO2 emissions, and we will need to buy some quotas to offset those CO2 emissions. Of course, this price for those CO2 quotas is a very, let's say, big question of how large will they be.
At the same time, most estimates say that at least it could give something like EUR 0.15 per liter increase in fuel price, maybe even more, which simply will mean that fossil fuels will continue to become more expensive while renewable fuels like biomethane, like electricity, at some point also CNG, which is generating less CO2 than standard fossil fuels, should also become more attractive in terms of pricing compared to the standard fossil fuels. That's on fuel. Let's go to the convenience stores.
Yeah. In convenience stores, I'd say if we could call 2024 a big expansion year, then 2025 is already an efficiency year. As I already discussed previously, we have this high competition in the market for the customers. This has been a tough period also for our shops. We actually have switched the loyalty offer to our new clients. We do these shifts, data analytics, and according to data, we analyze our existing customers and also investigate the market in new directions and try to offer the best offer for our existing clients and also to attract new customers and increase the customer base. At the same time, we see that macro-wise, the purchase interest in our products and products in general in the market is pretty tough because the inflation of the food prices is quite high. The customers are quite cautious.
We need to have the best offer and the best products at the same time, understanding that the price for the purchases is much higher. We still try to manage these two sides. If we look at the market shares, we have grown by 11.4%, whilst the market has grown in this period by only 2.7%, including Virši increase. We see and we feel this competition quite a lot, but we see also the results of our work. At the same time, as I already mentioned, the efficiency, we look at our product base, but we also look at the new processes and new investments that we have done in the past year and previously. We also have assessed products and we see how to improve them. At the same time, we also established new, let's say, market new.
We try to establish new market, which is the shops without the fuel stations. We have made the decision in this year that we need to close the shops that are non-fuel-related shops in Tervet e and in Origo in the Riga Center because our general customer was not that attracted to these shops. The perception of Virši in the market is still fuel station with the best coffee in the market. We continue our development that way. At this period of time, we can say that this test is discontinued and there are no, let's say, no further development on this direction planned in the nearest future.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The third segment, which is obviously the smallest one but still quite an ambitious one, is the energy segment. We see that we are continuing to sell more in terms of volume. We are also obviously gaining some market share in this segment and continuing to work with quite a lot of independent electricity producers in Latvia so that we are able to buy this renewable energy and then to sell it to our customers. The thing is that, I guess, which is also for other electricity players in the market, is the fact that basically we see that balancing costs are quite high in the first half of the year. Some part of that could be also allocated or connected with exiting this BRELL network. It was actually quite a big challenge in terms of balancing costs for the first half of 2025. We also have reviewed our portfolio.
We have increased margins, and we think that the second half should be better. I guess also important to note that we are still continuing to develop our households' portfolio for electricity. We see that already there is an increase by close to 20% in terms of customers in our households. We are currently still the number four biggest player in Latvia in terms of electricity supply to households. Of course, we will continue to grow, but the top three is still quite a big way ahead of us. We will need, let's say, long-term work to get closer to the top three. Some short news on natural gas. We see that we actually have developed our trading potential for natural gas. We have sold already first amounts of natural gas to our B2B customers, also to some test B2C customers.
We are now evaluating the whole process, and depending on the results, we will think whether and how much, how ambitious are we going into this segment in the future. That's on natural gas, and let's conclude, I guess, with financials.
Yeah. We actually have discussed already before the shift in the net profits and EBITDA. As discussed before and showed in the business segments, there is a high potential also based on the CapEx and the fuel station network that we have established in the past year. We see that actually here we have added the line on the CapEx. In the past year and this year, the investments have been quite high. This year, we should mention that there are two main streams of the investments. One big part of the EUR 7.4 million has gone to the fuel station in Salaspils, and another one to the biogas production plant in Naukšēni. We continue, we believe that these investments have bigger returns in the future and also shifting the key financials for the shareholders up as well.
If we look at the general financial situation loan-wise and current assets-wise, the current ratio is at 1. This is also one of our targets, not to fall below 1. Net debt/EBITDA is 2.4. The bigger shift has been in the past year. Last year, we attracted some new loans for the fuel station network expansion, and EBITDA is still running up for these stations. In this year, we still keep the loan portfolio quite balanced. There are not big increases in the portfolio compared to the year end of 2024. We see that the balance sheet and the financials and the potential is good for the future increase and improvements. We're expecting what's there to come.
Yep. Before we jump in Q&A session, let's maybe just summarize a few points which we would like you to take home after today's session. I guess the first point is that we are currently under a heavy investment stage, and we see a significant growth in our market shares. Obviously, there is a slight lag between, let's say, we see this investment generating also some return in P&L, let's say, more significant than currently we see. Another point is obviously the new station in Salaspils, which is quite a beautiful and strategical location for us. We are also developing already a second station this year in the city of Kuldīga.
Also a point of the fact that we have now exited the segment which is shops only without fuel, simply because we see that the profitability of those shops, we are not, let's say, meeting those capital return requirements which we would like to meet. On the biomethane plan, the short answer is that we are continuing to go in line with the timeline and the project plan. We expect that we will be starting selling biomethane in the first half of 2026. Again, a lot, I guess, we have spoken about this, but still just for everybody to recall, we have invested nearly EUR 30 million in 2024 and the first half of 2025. All those stations, of course, they had some one-time expenses while you are kind of starting them.
There always we need some time for them to pick up the pace and pick up this full operational, let's say, speed, which we expect will happen in the second half of this year. Obviously, that should also bring some good, let's say, trend on financial indicators for the second half of this year. These are, I guess, key bullet points. Let's probably go in the Q&A section.
Thank you for the presentation. We are now opening the floor for questions. Just a reminder to all that please submit the questions in writing through the Q&A window. We will start with the questions that were submitted already. What milestone should be achieved to turn sustainable profit for the electricity segment?
I can take this one. I guess two things. One is obviously we are having a sold market in the first half, as I mentioned, with balancing costs. We also have a game plan how to solve this. That includes also reviewing our portfolio with which, let's say, producers are we working and with whom we are not working, for whom we are increasing pricing. This is actually already very much in progress and should be seen in the next couple of months. That's the first thing. The second thing is simply, I guess, to continue to grow our market share in households, also attract B2B customers. I think if we do those two things, we will definitely have this sustainable profitability for this segment.
The next question, how many franchises are there currently?
I can take this one as well. Franchises, basically, we have currently three franchise partners. Two of those franchise partners have two stations each, and the third franchise partner has one. In total, we have five franchise stations in Latvia. We are always looking at ways to expand this network more because, of course, we cannot cover very fast, let's say, each corner of Latvia. If anybody is interested in such options, let's discuss.
How much cubic meters of gas will the biogas plant produce on average? What is the expected gross profit?
Gross profit is always a bit sensitive, but we can confirm that there is a very, at least we model a very good return on this plant. In terms of production capacity, I guess it's maybe not about cubic meters. We can simply say that we expect that yearly maximum, let's say, capacity would be 60,000 MW hours or 60 GW hours.
Yeah.
Gigawatt hours.
Yeah. When the production plant is up and running throughout 2027.
Yeah.
Thank you. Next question, what is the rationale behind Circle -K and Astarte deal? What changes in the business environment would you expect? Was this the last opportunity for Virši? Maybe Virši considered buying Astarte. If not, why not?
Yeah, I can take this one, and then you can take the other ones because I think the network is like my favorite area. On the Astarte deal, what rationale there was for Circle -K, it's very hard to comment because I guess they know their rationale better. Maybe that's just an estimate that Astarte has those stations more on regional, let's say, cities outside Riga. Maybe that is an option for Circle -K to somehow strengthen their position outside Riga more. There was a question, was this the last opportunity for Virši? I can confirm that we had looked at options to also take part in this deal. We have made quite a lot of, let's say, calculations, and we are always comparing. Scenario one, we buy some network, we put a lot of CapEx into this network, and then we see what cash flow it will generate.
Scenario two, which is basically an alternative scenario, we don't do this CapEx in buying and investing in Astarte, but instead, we are buying our own land plots, building new modern stations, and doing it in the places where we want it to do. In our, let's say, capital return calculations, the scenario where we are doing our own stations proved to be, let's say, more beneficial than to acquire this Astarte network, which besides other factors, it's also important to note is that there are quite many of those stations which would be overlapping with our existing stations. We have no, let's say, regrets. We wish all good for Circle-K with this network. We will continue to do our own strategy.
Thank you. Under selling costs, what is behind the sharp increase in other costs related to property? As I described already before, for the selling cost section, in EBITDA, the selling costs mainly have increased for the payroll section and for the property section. In the property section, this is related to the new stations and nothing else because there has not been a high shift in the inflation for the maintenance costs in the past year compared to this year. It is simply the amount of infrastructure we need to keep up. If fuel margins remain as in the first half of 2025, would it be possible to achieve the net profit target for 2027? Currently, we don't see any indications to adjust the net profit target for 2027. We will revise also our targets at the end of this year.
At the same time, if we look at the fuel margins, we don't see any indication that the profit should be adjusted or the margin should be adjusted currently in our models for the next periods. Also, as we discussed before, we are diversifying our fuel portfolio and also diversifying in general ourselves with alternatives. We see that the profit target and development is sustainable there. Thank you. The next question, considering that the total amount of long operating stations is higher now, shouldn't the negative effect from the new stations be less? The net profit is stagnating for a sustained period. Unless there is a significant seasonal difference between half one and half two, it would be most useful to also show comparables to half two of the prior year to see the latest six months versus previous six months. Would you consider this for future presentations?
I guess there's two questions.
Two questions. Maybe I can take the first one. About these long operating stations, if you look at this CapEx, which we have invested in not only 2024, 2025, but also 2023, it's already close to EUR 40 million, even EUR 50 million, which is a huge CapEx devoted to quite many, let's say, new modern stations. Usually, stations need some time. Maybe for some cities, it is one year. For some cities, it is two years. For some, of course, it's already the second month when they are fully operational. What I'm trying to say is that if you look at the last not only one year or two, but maybe even some four or five years, there has been made a lot of big CapEx. We always see that those stations are only a matter of time when we are generating positive cash flows.
We are now at this point where we believe this point is reached. In the second half, we will see a good return on those stations.
I would like to add that if we look at the longer past or the past three or four years, there has been a big shift in the labor market and the inflation is also in the labor market. This existing employees' portfolio also affects the net profits for the station. That has been a big struggle in the market by now. We see that the situation has normalized. We, as the employer, as the employer brand, are stronger now than in the previous years. There has been a shift in the costs if we look at the longer time span in the past. The second question about the financial information we disclosed, the half two, it's just a matter, I guess, of subtracting and adding the 2024 and the first half of 2024. We might consider some additional financial information.
We also have updated our slides with new financial information in this period of time. We also would not like to have too broad information to have this webinar. It's a burden for the shareholders.
There actually is a seasonal difference between H1 and H2. Usually, H2 is, let's say, bigger in terms of volume of liters because there is some seasonality, also bigger in terms of shop volume because people are traveling. It would not be like apples to apples if you compare H1 and H2.
Thank you, Vita and Jānis. All questions are now answered. Dear participants, thank you for being with us today. We hope to see you in the next webinars.
Thank you.
Thank you.