May 15 (SeeNews) - Macedonia's sole oil refinery Okta [MSE:OKTA] said its net profit for the first quarter grew to 18.7 million denars (340,820 euro) from 14.8 million denars a year ago.
The company's sales revenue soared 48% year-on-year to 5.1 billion denars, but costs of goods sold also jumped - by 53% to 4.9 billion denars, the refinery said in its financial report filed with the Macedonian stock exchange last week.
Hence, Okta's gross profit dropped 5% to 241.6 million denars.
Sales and marketing costs added 4% on the year to 141.1 million denars, administrative costs were 66.3 million denars, down 3%.
As a result, the operating profit of the refinery was 28.9 million denars, 34% lower than in the first quarter of 2016. This deterioration was mitigated by much lower financial costs, of 14.1 million denars, compared to 69.8 million denars a year ago.
Okta ended 2016 with a net profit of 331.2 million denars, with sales revenue totalling 19 billion denars.
Okta is majority-owned by EL.P.ET. Balkaniki, a subsidiary of Greek oil group Hellenic Petroleum.
OKTA possesses crude oil refining facilities with installed capacity of 2.5 million metric tons. Its installations are connected via 210 km pipeline with HELPE refinery in Thessaloniki. OKTA supplies more than half of the fuel needs of the country and has significant exports to Kosovo. It also exports to Serbia and Albania.
(1 euro = 61.49 denars)
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