MOSCOW (MRC) -- Hungarian oil group MOL Plc reported a net profit for the third quarter, helped by strong results in its downstream business, growth in its upstream production and a weak forint that offset fall in crude prices, said Reuters.
MOL operates refineries in Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia. It also has exploration and production assets in the North Sea and countries including Pakistan, Iraq, and Russia.
Net profit was 28.5 billion forints (USD115.1 million) in the third quarter compared with a loss of 30 billion forints in the same period of 2013 and a net profit of 24 billion forints in the second quarter. The company's so called clean EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) rose 18% to 163.9 billion forints, versus the 145.9 billion forint estimate of eight analysts polled by business website Portfolio.hu.
MOL said it also managed to reverse the declining trend in production, which was partly due to an increase in crude output in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
MOL's daily production rose to 94,900 barrels from 92,400 in the second quarter, but was still below the 101,300 barrels recorded in the third quarter of 2013.
Upstream EBITDA rose to 66.2 billion forints from 60.6 billion in the second quarter but was 20% lower year on year.
Its downstream business reported a 67% annual rise in EBITDA to 80.8 billion forints in the third quarter, which MOL said was due to a rise in gasoline and fuel crack spreads and its efficiency improvement programme in the past years which started to yield results.
As MRC wrote before, JSR Corp. and MOL have received European Commission approval to form Vierium Investment, a new joint venture company to produce 60,000 t/y of solution polymerized styrene butadiene rubber (S-SBR) in Tiszaujvaros, Hungary. The venture, owned 51% by JSR and 49% by MOL, will utilize MOL's existing plant infrastructures and JSR's S-SBR production technologies. Commercial operations are scheduled for 2017 and a capacity expansion is under study and will be implemented based on demand.
MRC