MOSCOW (MRC) -- Valero Energy Corp. said its fourth-quarter earnings fell 74%, hurt by a hefty charge and a sharp decline in its ethanol business caused by falling prices, while operating income in its refining business was flat, said Marketwatch.
Shares fell 0.6% after hours, after dropping 2.2% to USD64.53 in regular trading, as per-share earnings, excluding certain one-time items, and revenue beat expectations.
For the latest quarter, Valero’s refining business’s adjusted operating earnings were unchanged at USD1.5 billion.
In the ethanol segment, adjusted operating profit slumped to USD37 million from USD154 million on weaker margins as selling prices declined but corn prices remained relatively stable.
Overall, Valero VLO, -1.26% reported a profit of USD298 million, or 62 cents a share, down from USD1.16 billion, or USD2.22 a share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items such as a USD790 million inventory-related charge, per-share earnings from continuing operations fell to USD1.79 from USD1.83. Revenue slumped 33% to USD18.78 billion.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected per-share profit of USD1.45 and revenue of USD16.75 billion.
As MRC reported earlier, in November 2015, a gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracking unit was not running after a fire broke out Sunday at Valero Energy Corp's 335,000 barrel per day (bpd) Port Arthur, Texas, refinery. The fire was stemmed from a hole in the FCCU's fractionator, the sources said.
Valero Energy Corporation is a Fortune 500 international manufacturer and a marketer of transportation fuels, other petrochemical products, and power. It is based in San Antonio, Texas, United States. The company owns and operates 16 refineries throughout the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and the Caribbean with a combined throughput capacity of approximately 3 million barrels (480,000 m3) per day, 10 ethanol plants with a combined production capacity of 1.2 billion US gallons (4,500,000 m3) per year, and a 50 megawatt wind farm.
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