Revenue of the energy transmission and exchange company group EPSO-G for the first half of the current year amounted to EUR 243.7 million and represented an increase of 61.6% compared to EUR 150.9 million in the same period last year. The termination of gas imports from Russia this year has led to a significant increase and substantial change in gas flows in Lithuania and the region, resulting in higher revenues from transmission and system balancing. The increase in electricity prices led to an increase in the Group's revenues from system balancing services.
This year, after Lithuania stopped importing natural gas from Russia, the Klaipėda LNG terminal became the main source of gas in the Baltic States, which led to a significant redistribution of gas flows. More gas is being transported towards Latvia and, since May this year, also towards Poland. Transporting gas to adjacent transmission systems has increased revenues and changed their structure. In January-June this year, the EPSO-G Group's revenue from natural gas transmission amounted to EUR 56.5 million, an increase of 78.6% compared to the first half of last year.
In the first half of the year, 9.6 TWh of gas was delivered to Lithuania, excluding gas transit to the Kaliningrad region. This is a 35% decrease compared to last year. However, 7.8 TWh of gas was transported to Latvia alone in the first half of the year, which is 14 times more than in the first half of 2021.
The main performance indicators for electricity transmission remained relatively stable this year. 5.3 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity were transmitted through the country's high-voltage transmission networks to meet the needs of the population and businesses in January-June, a decrease of 1.5% compared to the same period last year. However, balancing revenues increased 2.8 times to EUR 53 million, thanks to a rise in the average selling price of electricity.
Participants of the GET Baltic gas exchange, which operates in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland, concluded 13.1 thousand transactions - a ten percent increase compared to the first half of last year. Trading volumes amounted to 3.7 TWh in the first six months of the year, down by around one fifth compared to the same period last year. This was due to warmer weather and high natural gas prices.
In January-June, Lithuanian heat supply companies, independent heat producers and industrial companies purchased 2.7 thousand GWh of biofuel from the Baltpool energy resources exchange. This is an increase of 21.8% compared to the same period in 2021.
EPSO-G's EBITDA for the period January-June amounted to EUR 13.7 million, which is around 72% less than in the same period last year. The Group made a loss of around EUR 4.5 million, with a net profit of EUR 28 million for the first six months of 2021. These results were driven by increased costs, mainly due to significantly higher average energy prices, but also by a temporary reduction in transmission tariffs due to the return of surplus revenues from prior periods to transmission system users.
In the first six months of the year, the EPSO-G Group invested EUR 15 million in infrastructure. Amber Grid, a company within the group, invested EUR 3.8 million in the gas transmission system this year, while Litgrid invested EUR 10.5 million this year.
EPSO-G launched a sustainability bond on the capital markets in June, raising EUR 75 million. This is the first sustainability-linked bond issue in the Baltics. The five-year bond with a yield of 3.117% was bought by institutional investors from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Sweden. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development purchased almost one third of the issue for EUR 22.5 million. The bonds were listed on Nasdaq's Baltic Debt Securities List.
The EPSO-G group of companies consists of the holding company EPSO-G, its five directly owned subsidiaries Amber Grid, Baltpool, Energy cells, Litgrid and Tetas, and the indirectly controlled GET Baltic. As of 30 June, the Group had 1,361 employees.