MOSCOW (MRC) -- Poland's top refiner PKN Orlen may review its strategy and long-term financial targets to adjust to market conditions, the company said on Thursday after it posted a fourth-quarter net loss of USD20 million, said Reuters.
PKN's 2014-2017 strategy assumed its average annual EBITDA LIFO - or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, excluding the impact of oil prices changes - would be 5.1 billion zlotys (USD1.2 billion).
Last year, PKN's EBITDA LIFO came to 7.74 billion zlotys. According to the strategy, PKN Orlen plans to increase its dividend per share every year by 2017.
PKN said its fourth-quarter net loss of 81 million zlotys, which was below analyst expectations, was the result of bigger than expected charges on assets due to falling oil prices, though this was partly offset by higher refining margins.
The company said it had to write off 400 million zlotys from the value of its Canada's assets in the quarter.
Analysts polled by Reuters expected the state-run group to post a net profit of 134 million zlotys. The forecasts varied significantly due to different estimates of the charges it would book and the revaluation of its oil inventories.
In the fourth quarter of 2014, PKN Orlen posted a 1.2 billion zlotys loss due to huge impairment charge, a slump in the value of oil reserves and higher financial costs.
PKN said it expected its oil refining margin to fall in 2016 from $8.3 per barrel in 2015. It also expected Brent crude oil prices to be comparable to last year, when they fell 47 percent to USD52.4 per barrel. In 2015 the company refined 30.9 million tons of oil, mostly from Russia.
The group's adjusted operating profit in the fourth quarter was 919 million zlotys, below the 1.28 billion zlotys expected by analysts but above 444 million last year.
PKN also said it planned to increase investment to 4.8 billion zlotys in 2016 from to 3.2 billion last year.
As MRC reported earlier, in mid-June 2013 PKN Orlen offered for sale a second PLN 200m tranche of its bonds and expects the proceeds from the entire bond issue programme to reach approximately PLN 1bn. This move was done in response to the enormous interest in PKN Orlen bonds on the part of investors, who subscribed to the entire PLN 200m of the first series of bonds in just two days.
Polski Koncern Naftowy ORLEN S.A. (PKN Orlen) is a Polish oil and gas coSolvents plant shut bympany. It has a lot of petrol stations in Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Lithuania and Slovakia. It is the biggest company in Poland and one of the biggest oil and gas companies in Europe. Polish group PKN Orlen PKNA is a majority owner - 63% of czech polyolefins manufacturer Unipetrol.
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