An unfavorable euro-dollar currency exchange rate is listed as the most crucial factor that could prove detrimental for its financial performance, DEPA the the Public Gas Corporation, has noted in a company report.

Last year, the group posted a profit after tax figure of 105.7 million euros, a spectacular rise from 14.1 million euro in 2015.

Though DEPA’s turnover in 2016 fell by 10 percent, to 862 million euros, as a result of a drop in natural gas prices, sales, in volume terms, grew by 34 percent, to 42.7 million megawatt hours.

According to DEPA’s management, the corporate group is not exposed to any risk concerning interest rate changes on existing debt. All short and long-term loans held by DEPA at the end of 2016 carried fixed interest rates, the company report noted.

The euro-dollar currency exchange rate was singled out as a key risk factor in the report as most of DEPA’s natural gas orders from abroad are dollar based.

DEPA, in the report, noted that if the euro currency were 10 percent stronger against the US dollar at the end of 2016, its pretax profit would have increased by 4.3 million euros and profit after tax would have improved by 3 million euros. On the contrary, a 10 percent reduction in the value of the euro currency against the US dollar would have decreased the company’s pre-tax profit by 5.2 million euros and after tax profit by 3.7 million euros in 2016, the report noted.