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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mol Nyrt., the
Hungarian oil refiner which posted its biggest quarterly loss in more than five
years, is seeking to raise production by 10% this year and resume acquisitions
after crude prices slumped, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing.
"We
will assess every downstream acquisition possibility in the region" and "I hope
we can make announcements in this respect this year," Ferenc Horvath, Mol’s
executive vice president in charge of refining and marketing, said in an
interview Tuesday.
The company seeks to raise the amount of retail
products it sells in central and eastern Europe to 5.4 billion liters a year by
2017 from 4.3 billion liters, Horvath said.
Hungary’s largest listed
company had a 68.6 billion forint (USD254 million) net loss in the three months
ending December, compared with a 5.2 billion forint profit a year earlier, it
said in a regulatory statement on Tuesday. One-time items, including the
revaluation of oil reserves, caused the loss, the results showed. Mol’s stock
rose after the company said it plans to raise upstream output by about 10% to as
much as 110,000 bpd of oil equivalent in 2015.
Mol is looking to expand
production and acquisitions after facing dwindling reserves in eastern Europe, a
civil war in Syria disrupting its operations and an almost 50% decline in oil
prices last year.
The company expects downstream earnings before
interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to increase to between USD1.3
billion to USD1.4 billion/year by 2017 from USD870 million in 2014 as a result
of an efficiency improvement program starting in 2015, Horvath said. The company
seeks to generate close to USD900 million in normalized cash flow in three
years, he added.
As MRC informed earlier,
MOL is applying its squeeze-out right for shares of petrochemicals company
TVK, a Hungarian manufacturer of olefins and polyolefins such as polyethylene
and polypropylene. The agency added that MOL wound up a voluntary public
purchase offer for the shares on Friday, raising its stake in TVK from 94.86% to
99.1%, providing all preconditions were met.
MOL previously said
Hungarian authorities had dismissed the allegations against MOL, which now holds
a 49.1% share of INA. Hungary's government holds a 24.6% stake in MOL. |
