МOSCOW (MRC) -- Total SA said its profitability fell again in the second quarter as revenue from its refineries and petrochemical plants deteriorated and oil price remained stubbornly low though not as steeply as expected, said Marketwatch.
Total said net profit fell 30% to USD2.09 billion in the second quarter from the same period a year ago while revenue contracted 17% to USD37.22 billion. When adjusted to exclude the effect of inventories and other nonrecurring items, the company's net profit fell to USD2.17 billion down from USD3.09 billion in the same quarter a year ago.
The adjusted profit data was higher than the USD1.89 billion median forecast of 11 analysts polled by FactSet.
Despite cost-cutting efforts by the company and its scrambling to extract more oil from existing fields to boost revenue, Total's profitability has continually shrunk since mid-2014 when oil prices collapsed. The company had managed to keep from plunging too deep into the red thanks to favorable conditions on the market of refined products, which has deteriorated this year.
Still, Total is optimistic as oil price has risen a third in the second quarter from the previous three-month period and refining margins remained stable.
The company expects to cut costs by more than the USD2.4 billion originally targeted, it said.
As MRC informed earlier, Total says that the EUR950 million (USD1.1 billion) public tender offer it launched for battery major, Saft (Bagnolet, France) in May resulted in Total acquiring 90.14% of the capital and voting rights of Saft Groupe, based on the total number of shares outstanding as of 12 July 2016.
Total S.A. is a French multinational oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world with business in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. The company's petrochemical products cover two main groups: base chemicals and the consumer polymers (polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene) that are derived from them.
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