My name is Olga and I will be moderating today's event. As usual, we will start our conference with the company's presentation, which will be followed by a live Q&A session. You are kindly invited to submit your questions in writing by using the Q&A window below the presentation, or you can raise your hand and be unmuted after the presentation is over. Please be informed that this session is being recorded and a replay will be available soon after the call. Without further delay, I would like to give the floor to our today's host, Tomas Tumėnas, Chief Financial Officer of KN Energies. Please, Tomas, the stage is yours.
Thank you, Olga. Hello to everyone in this quite rainy afternoon in Vilnius. I would like to share and describe our situation during the first half, what we did, what happens within the company, within the group, and I am really happy to share all financial information and major events. Let's start. As usually, I would like to give some information about overall market situation worldwide in oil industry and in gas industry, also in our region. Then we will touch completely market and business situation of the KN Group, and then we will touch at the end financial results which actually have been released or was released in the stock exchange. Let's start. Major highlights we pointed out here, but I would like maybe to emphasize on the especially more commercial or business-oriented KPIs like methanol cargo.
For us, it's a really important milestone because we handled almost 5,000 cu m and also we managed to make the first commercial methanol cargo within our port, every industry and every in our infrastructure. It required additional investments, preparation, and we look forward to increase that loading of such kinds of products in the future because they are really demanded in the market. KN allocated almost 70%, 71% of future gas decommissioning regasification or let's say all our capacities during period for the future period as of 2033 till 2044. Also, our key project in new energy business segment, CO2 emission CCS project got project of national importance. As a result of very active activity in our LNG business unit, the FSRU average utilization so far during the first six months was 86%, so it was really huge. Let's go on.
Also some major KPIs regarding the revenues. As you see, our revenues on the top line, we managed to increase our revenues per group by 14% versus the first half of the last year, reaching EUR 58 million. EBITDA increased by almost 15%, reaching EUR 31 million. The official net profit, we increased almost 60% and reaching almost EUR 14 million. I would say as in overall, really good results, really strong results, despite the total overall vulnerability in the energy market, let's put it this way. Really, I think we are performing pretty well and basically all our business segments are doing better versus the last year. Also in our daily life, we are monitoring regarding the budget. Also we are over-performing the budget. As we see, accordingly, the market definitely reacted to some information we released during the six months, also including first quarter results.
Our capitalization grew by almost EUR 29 million and share price since the beginning of this year increased 13.6% and are outperforming overall stock exchanges in Baltic countries. Market and business overview. As you know, and also, I guess you are watching the energy business and situation in the energy markets. If we take as a start, the beginning of this year, and especially at the end of March, when the, let's say, campaign, United States started campaign against Iran in Hormuz. The prices for all energy products, meaning oil products, gasoline and gas, increased a lot. The fluctuation in the market is very high. The prices went up since the Hormuz, let's say, case surge by almost 50%.
Currently, if we take the gas prices, they are trading at around EUR 61-EUR 63 per megawatt hour and crude oil, as you see, also fluctuates around $80-$90. Meaning that all these high prices from one hand puts in a good situation oil refineries, meaning that the crushing margins are quite high for the first half of this year worldwide. Definitely the performance of the oil refineries are very good as well, and they are announcing very good results. What it means for us, for us it means that one of our major clients, ORLEN, also enjoying quite high margins and the volumes and the production capacity utilization at oil refineries are quite high. This is secure supply, and we are happy to provide as much service as we can to all our oil partners, meaning our clients.
From another hand, the fluctuations definitely put some certain uncertainty and additional pressure on the costs side, on the OpEx. Also I'm not showing the fluctuation of our emission carbon, emission prices. They also fluctuated a lot. For us, for KN Group, emission prices impacts a lot on overall OpEx, because the prices, how much we're spending for emission certificates is quite high, amounting to almost EUR 6 million. Meaning that, also from risk perspective, from the pressure on OpEx, it's a negative impact. Okay, so if we just go more deeply in LNG market, what happens in 2026 in the first half. As you see, via our terminal, have been imported basically only from two origins, from two countries, the LNG. It comes primarily from Norway, 58%, and then the rest from United States.
If we look on the Europe level, the distribution supply is slightly different. Depending on each country, they have slightly different situation. In overall, the major sources of LNG import comes from Norway and United States, followed by Trinidad and Tobago, and also from Qatar. Also some quantities, unfortunately, still are imported from Russia. One of the biggest countries importing from Russia LNG is Belgium. As I mentioned, the Klaipėda, our FSRU Independence utilization rate is very high, as you see, reaching 86%. It's higher than we had last year in the same period of the last year. Also definitely much more higher compared with the European average, which is 53%. Actually, I would say that this is very good utilization ratio. Of course, it's very important for us, meaning that we have quite steady, stable LNG import flow.
Our FSRU works as a factory, as manufacturing facility, and works at almost 100% of the capacity. We are enjoying that utilization. Our commercial people are doing everything in order to sell our capacity to our clients. What is the situation with, let's say, gas storage? It is very important also indicator. If we are discussing at the end of the June, taking the end of the June, the reporting period. Storage in Europe was approximately 48% of, let's say, total needed capacity, and it is almost 10% below historical levels. I have looked in the morning what is the situation, taking into account the most recent data. Taking into account the beginning of August, the storage level increased to almost 58%, but still, again, this is below the normal level, below by almost the same 10% of the normal level.
As we see last year, meaning that this is here, Baltics are storaging the LNG also, is quite below the historical level. That definitely puts, I would say, some risks, some additional pressure in the future depending on the situation in the Hormuz, if they will open or not, and what will be the case. Europe, as I said, primarily imports gas from not only Norway and United States, but also from, let's say, the same Qatar or Hormuz countries. Maybe the majority of that gas goes into the South European countries like Italy, Spain, maybe less than in northern part. Nevertheless, taking into account overall situation, I would say, difficult to predict, but meaning that it could be some problems or some challenges in having sufficient gas before the winter if the Hormuz Strait will not be opened.
Accordingly, that impacts directly the prices for the gas, which, during the past two weeks, went up again by 15%. The traders and the investors are taking into account that risk. Of course, nobody knows what will be the winter, a cold or mild one. We have some uncertainties in the future regarding the, let's say, our demand for gas in Europe. I would like just to go through our business segments and the biggest one in terms of the revenues, in terms of the profitability is regulated activity. As I already mentioned, we are really enjoying the very high Performance indicators. Utilization ratio, as I said, it is very high.
Very important thing that we managed to do during the past, I guess in past two months, was that we opened a tender auction for our future capacities, and for the period of 2033 till 2044. As you know, currently, we have everything booked till 2033. We managed and we planned to make additional, a new one tender, a new one auction for the future, for the next 10 years. I would say our auction was really successful. Very successful, actually. We sold almost 70%, concretely 71% of our future utilization of the capacity of the FSRU. Meaning that it gives us a lot of stability, predictability in the future cash flows, in future inflows. Also it shows that the importance of the Klaipėda terminal is very let's see, demanded in the market.
Even taking into account that our neighbors, especially in Poland, they are building the second FSRU vessel in order to supply and fulfill their demand for the gas because Poland is one of the biggest gas importers and consumers in Europe. We are really happy and proud, I would say, regarding those results, and a lot of efforts has been made by commercial people. Even it is important that we managed to put in our list as a new client, a Ukraine company, Naftogaz, and Gasum from Finland. This is also very important. Even taking into account that still we have not bidded some capacity from our existing clients because, for one or another reason, maybe for them, it is too early to make, let us say, obligations or to write regarding the obligations for the future bookings of our capacity.
I hope that time will come, and I am pretty sure that we will sell the rest of, let us say, 20% easily. Meaning that our utilization ratio, starting from 2033 and beyond, will be not 71%, but almost close to the current levels. Just wanted to remind you that full terminal, according to the, let us say, accounting rules and depreciation, it is operated till 2044. Basically, it means the value on 2044 will be balance sheet value zero, which is actually, of course not will be the true, but this is it showing that we are really in a good position, in very strong position in our, let us say, regulated activity. Also, some information, financial information, because every year and regulator recalculates the WACC. In other words, our return on the assets, which is allowed to keep it within the company.
As you see, we got for the next year, slightly less amount of the WACC versus current one, and it means it is almost EUR 0.2 million less revenue, so we will get in the next year versus the current one. This is really profound and very strong results for the regulated activity. Accordingly, in the figures it reflected, as you see, and revenues increased, and EBITDA increased. Also important to note that within our revenues, we have also some commercial revenues, as we are calling, which are within our terminal and extra activities. Beyond our obligations that we have from the clients, we managed also to sell several cargoes during the first half of this year and get extra revenues for the company and also for the consumers. If we go into the second, in terms of the volumes and size our business segment, liquid energy.
In the liquid energy, if we take the overall market and we take our performance, this is slightly different. Meaning that the company is going above, if we take the overall market growth, because it is not even in whole Baltic region. Whereas Klaipėda is performing quite okay, as you see in our figures and presentation, Klaipėda port handled almost 2.3 million tons of oil products, and this is 12% increase. While Latvian and Estonian ports declined accordingly if we compare it with the period a year ago. Our share in oil market remains almost the same. It means stable. We are serving around 30% of all Baltic oil terminal, liquid energy markets throughput within Baltic ports, and of course, almost up to 100% via Klaipėda port. If we take some highlights and financial figures on liquid energy. We transshipped 2 million tons of various oil products.
It is 9% growth. I already mentioned we managed to sell 4,000 cu m methanol cargo, transshipped, sorry, methanol cargo. Revenues increased by 7% to EUR 16 million. EBITDA remained almost the same. We are very happy, of course, with the good relations with ORLEN, as I discussed, one of our biggest clients. The throughput of their products, especially diesel, increased a lot. Thanks to the diesel, thanks to the blended gasoline and methanol, we managed to grow by 7% in revenues. While if we take the total consumption, for example, of gasoline in Lithuania, it increased only 1.4%, and diesel increased only by 0.8%. Meaning we are outperforming the markets in our terminal utilization. That is good, also puts a quite stable cash flow in our second, in terms of the revenues and size, business segment. I already mentioned the liquid oil products.
We are going to the commercial LNG. Commercial LNG also growing a lot. Basically, this just means that we are importing LNG, various cargoes, and then we are loading into the trucks. We, in the first half of the year, reloaded up to almost 1,300 trucks. That represents a 40% increase versus the last year. That also supported our growth of our whole liquid product market. If we are separating it separately into commercial LNG, it contributed almost EUR 2.7 million in EBITDA to the total performance of the company. Also very important to note, I almost forgot that our team managed to sign an O&M contract for some services to the Gaz-S ystem, the monopoly operator in the Poland.
As I mentioned, they are building the second terminal. Also we are trying to sell our services of managing those FSRU vessels and inshore terminals. Actually we signed that contract. So far, it is one of the steps we believe for the future goal and future cooperation with the Polish LNG business and terminal operators. If we are talking about new energy, basically, this is the future of our business, so-called new energy businesses. Here it is a really important milestone was achieved regarding the status of CCS project. We got national importance status. That allows us to move much more smoother, much more quicker with all decisions in order to implement, to start constructions, let us say, after feasibility studies, to got all permissions needed from the various government institutions. That it is really lengthy process.
Of course, it costs the time, costs the money. Therefore, we really managed together with all support from the state authorities, especially from the Ministry of Energy. They supported company a lot in that movement. We are thanks to them. Meaning that we are putting a more solid playground, more solid ground, actually, for CCS project to be valid. Currently, we are very heavily involved in launching front-end engineering design study and also into the process of getting the grant. We are applying for the grant from European Commission regarding building that terminal. So we are in the process of submitting the documents. We will inform about the results of that process in the forthcoming months. Summarizing, wrapping up everything, as you see, taking into account what I already mentioned in different business segments. So we really enjoyed growth in the revenues.
Since the revenues are growing, our other financial KPI, EBITDA, net profit is growing as well. Despite that, also our OpEx is not staying at the same level that it used to be last year. Of course, I would like to see it stable, but definitely taking into account energy prices, taking still account the pressure on the salaries and other OpEx lines, we need to cover those by revenues, by growth in the revenue size. Always, I'm presenting and explaining the normalized financial results, meaning those results that are excluding impact of various regulated differences or inputs or impacts or inflows or outflows regarding regulated activity. Here you see we have our, if we take official, let's say, business performance of LNG business segment, regulated business segment, and let's say, performance of normalized activities.
The figures are slightly less versus the official, because all extra income that we're managing to get, we are in the future, we will need to return to the regulator, and that will have an impact on our official results in the forthcoming years. But despite of that, as we see, the first half of this year was really good, very strong, and net profit, even taking out all that impact, we managed to receive almost EUR 9.5 million . So it's really good growth, especially comparing to the last year and looking forward to see the same results almost, let's say, or close to them in the first half of this year. I will not touch maybe the profitability market value figures. Closing my presentation, always I am wanted to show you our financial situation and cash flow situation and financial strengths.
Net debt, as you see, is EUR 239 million. It amortizes the loans. I just wanted to remind that we are the only one company in Lithuania having the government guarantee, the state guarantee. So it's like secured loan from company's perspective. Looking from net debt to EBITDA level and the DSCR level, we are really okay. Also taking our free cash flow situation. As you see, we are in the first half of the year. We are in a good position having almost EUR 25 million of free cash flow, taking into account quite big amount of dividends which we have paid for the 2025 year results. Our cash flow from operating activities as usually are very strong. Regarding investment activity, CapEx looking forward, taking into account our future investment plans.
We will have additional spendings in that cash flow line and financing activity, of course, it's a negative because every year we are paying the loans for our FSRU. I will not see any dramatic changes here, but from operation cash flow perspective, the company and the group is really very good and strong position. Thank you for your attention and happy to answer questions if those audience will have.
Thank you, Tomas, for the presentation. And yes, indeed, we are now moving to the questions. Just to remind you that you can submit them either in writing in the Q&A window below, or you can raise your hand to be unmuted. First, let's start with the question that we have received in advance of the call, which is the following. Allocate next year's regasification capacity. Will the capacity be expanded because there are free spaces?
The capacity, fortunately, we can't expand of our FSRU because it's like, as I said, big manufacturing facility and expansion only could take place if we will acquire additional FSRU vessels. So basically, let's say, as we calling real capacity amounts to almost 34.8 TWh. As already we have mentioned, everything is booked. Specifically, if we're talking about the next year, 2027, also we managed to sell three out of five cargoes for the 2027. For the 2027, if we're looking from, let's say, how much is booked out of the capacity, so already is booked 36 TWh.
Meaning even more than, well, let's say this sort of like a limit, but this is a really good sign, meaning that definitely during the year, many things could happen and it happens and the clients sometimes cancel, not sometimes, but yeah, they cancel the cargo depending on the situation, the prices and import possibilities. But of course, as you know, again, that we have all our capacity, all the cargoes are take-or-pay nature, meaning that for the company or the group, this is no harm if the certain cargoes which are booked are canceled. So we already booked 36 TWh despite that our capacity is around 35 TWh.
Thank you. We have received one more question. What would be your predictions for this whole year?
I think that I would say, if we take the growth, total growth or the growth per business segment, comparing the first half versus the same period in the last year. I would say that in the second half, the growth will be versus the last year, but slightly less than we had in the first half because of the various reasons. For example, one of those, in August, we have reconstructions, let's say, works in the pipelines, gas pipelines, meaning that even because of this, we can't send the gas. Of course, we will need to stop for a while, for the couple weeks our FSRU regarding this. As an example, this is like a technical reasons which is actually happening during the summer. This is nothing wrong about that. But this is like, I would say, a normal business activities.
What it will be the situation in, for example, November or December and what it will be the weather conditions also is a question mark. Nobody knows. But answering to the question, I would say, I would predict slightly less growth in the second half versus the second half of 2025 than we had in the first half of this year.
Thank you. Moving to the next question. Is the EU Methane Regulation a risk factor for 2027? How is KN planning to comply?
Regarding methanol? I'm sorry.
Yes. It's written methane regulation.
Methane.
EU Methane Regulation.
Basically, I would not separately exclude or take it out, methane regulation versus other, let's say, CO2 regulation requirements. We have our activity plan regarding firstly diminishing CO2 and methanol, also taking into account all the events that, according to these regulations, could change. One thing is regarding our own situation, our own terminal, and the second is regarding our clients, which also they are following those regulations. So far, what I'm trying to say, we are just following our action plan, and here I would not predict so far anything wrong or negative impacts in the future regarding the businesses and the regulations, if nothing extraordinary out of the blue would happen.
Thank you. I don't see any new questions coming in, but let's wait maybe a couple of seconds to ensure there are no additional questions. Yes, I see one more question. Could you please elaborate your plans in Vietnam?
Thank you. Also, it's a good question. The Vietnam as well also announced, and in our last announcement regarding, let's say, Asian activities and also in the previous half a year ago, Vietnam is one of our key markets for our commercial activity, as we're calling this new energy activities. So here it's our key market, and we are working, let's say, step by step in that market. It's a big market. Of course, it's dominated by the big international players with a very heavy presence of China energy companies, LNG companies, gas companies from Japan and the United States. So a really competitive market, but also very growing market. And they need a lot imported LNG because they are very, as you know, Vietnam is a manufacturing, let's say, country.
So they need a lot of also gas for their manufacturing businesses and also for the consumers, for the simply citizens. So it's a demanded market worldwide and growing, but very competitive. In order to enter, to have the market share, for us from quite small country and quite small company, it's not easy. Therefore, we need to be patient. But I really believe that our investments in terms of the, not money, let's say, but also in terms of the people, of the human resources, in order to maintain those connections will pay us out. And I hope very much that in forthcoming future, I really would hope that we will be able to announce some concrete business cases. So of course, I can't give guarantee, or we as a company can't give guarantee at the moment, but this is why we're working.
Really, I'm looking forward, and I hope that we will be able to deliver in the next, let's say, six or eight months, something new regarding the Vietnam.
Thank you. The next question. What will be the deal with Indel Petro specifically, and also how much would KN Energies invest in Vietnam, if you have any calculations?
Here I do not want to speculate regarding the figures for investments into Vietnam. Only I can say it could be from EUR 1 million to, let's say, EUR 20 million. But really it is too early to make any concrete figures because it will not be wise and professional from my side. Of course, again, it is not only the growing market, but also where is the business, there is risks. Accordingly, we need to mitigate those risks as much as we can, and I would say that KN, taking into account the role and our status that we are state-owned company. For us, the risks is very on high level, on priority level. For us, maybe sometimes it is more I would say even more difficult to make some commercial decisions versus the totally private company.
Therefore, again, I do not want to give any predictions regarding the sizes and amounts. Only one message, be patient and believe in us, and we will deliver the results.
Thank you, Tomas. Now the question on dividends. In 2021, profit from financial activity for 2020 was eliminated when it came to calculate dividend base. In 2026, there is also profit from financial activity. Can it be eliminated next spring when it will come to calculate dividend base for 2026? Or will 60% all profit be allocated?
If we are talking about 2020, so basically that financial activity came from Forex fluctuation, meaning this is not like a cash flow item. Currently, what we have in financial income, we have basically two components. Of course, the amount is slightly less than 2020, so basically this is income from our investment activities, meaning deposits, et cetera stuff. We are not investing in any other type of financial products. Also from our hedge activities. The hedge activities, we are hedging not for speculation, for the risk management.
As I said, the biggest hedge comes on EU carbon emission and then on the gas. Also, we are consumption gas internally. So we are currently in the okay situation. We managed to get a momentum and to hedge a good time, and that will have direct impact on our financial results, and those figures will not be eliminated. This is my answer.
Thank you, Tomas. It looks like we have successfully addressed all the questions that we have got for today. Thank you once again for your presentation and for answering the questions. I would like also to thank all the participants for your time and interest. We will be looking forward to seeing you in our future events.
Thank you. Thank you to everyone, and wish you a good half of the day and have a good day. Thank you.
Thank you. Goodbye.
Bye.