The French multinational energy company Engie – the parent company of Engie Electrabel, Belgium's largest electricity and natural gas supplier – has upwardly revised its profit forecast for 2023 by €1.3 billion, Belga News Agency reports.
On Friday, the group announced that it now expects to earn a net profit of between €4.7 and €5.3 billion this year, compared to between €3.4 and €4 billion as previously forecast.
The upward revision is mainly linked to the solid results recorded by the company's energy supply and risk management solutions division, the company stated in a press release. It also mentioned the strong performance of its business-to-business activities and its effective management of its European investments.
Engie now expects 2023 profits to equal – and potentially even surpass – those of last year, when it made €5.2 billion.
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The news also follows a report published earlier this week by the Federation of Belgian Companies (FEB), which found that 80% of Belgian businesses are now paying two-and-a-half times more for energy than they were at the beginning of 2022 – a fact which, the report claims, poses a significant threat to Belgium's industrial base as companies relocate to take advantage of cheaper energy prices.
"The risks of new investments escaping us and new relocations taking place, are real," said FEB CEO Pieter Timmermans.
The new forecast also follows a recent study by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which found that soaring corporate profits are the main driver of Europe's ongoing inflation crisis.
