Viva Energy has released the Group’s financial results for the half year ended 30 June 2024 (1H2024).
Fuel sales were up 6% to 8.3 billion litres, while EBITDA grew 25% to $425 million.
“Cost-of-living pressures and illegal tobacco trade are having an impact on consumer demand within our convenience businesses, at the same time that wage and cost inflation are driving up the cost of doing business across all our business units,” says Viva Energy CEO and Managing Director Scott Wyatt.
“In this context, our financial results for the first half demonstrate significant resilience and the benefits that come from diversity within our businesses. Continued strength in our commercial businesses, and strong production performance at our Geelong refinery were key drivers of earnings growth.”
Convenience and mobility
The company-operated fuel and convenience network delivered EBITDA of $122.1 million in 1H2024, broadly in line with the prior corresponding period.
Fuel sales volumes were 1601ML, down 5% on a same-store, pro forma basis.
Convenience same-store sales declined ~5% as lower same-store tobacco sales (down 17%) outweighed modest growth across other categories.
“We expect the consumer market to remain challenging through the remainder of 2024 but have made good progress integrating our retail businesses and will pursue cost and earnings improvements as a priority over the next 18 months,” says Mr Wyatt.
Viva Energy expects to convert 30 existing Express stores to the OTR offering stores over the next 12 months, with five to be converted by the end of 2024. Landlord consents and town planning are taking longer than expected, slowing deployment this year.
“We remain focused on extending the leading OTR convenience offer across the Express network which will commence in scale from 2025,” says Mr Wyatt.
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