Romania's OMV Petrom 9-mo net profit inches down 1.0%

In the third quarter alone, the group's net profit fell to 864.5 million lei from 1.18 billion lei a year earlier, OMV Petrom said in a statement. The results are consolidated, unaudited and reported under the International Financial Reporting Standards.

"In the third quarter of 2012 our operational result was overall in line with the same period of last year, mainly supported by a stronger USD against RON [Romanian leu],” OMV Petrom’s CEO Mariana Gheorghe said in the statement.

"Going forward, we plan to further pursue our investments in the range of EUR 0.8-1.2 bn p.a. for the coming years, assuming robust market fundamentals and investment-friendly regulatory and fiscal regimes," Gheorghe added.

OMV Petrom's earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) decreased by an annual 3.9% to 1.29 billion lei in the third quarter, however, for the first nine months of 2012 the EBIT improved by 6.25% to 3.99 billion lei.

The group’s consolidated sales rose 18.25% on the year to 19.19 billion lei through September. In the third quarter alone, sales climbed by 17.30% on the year to 6.98 billion lei.

“We focused our investments in the E&P [exploration and production] segment to stabilize our hydrocarbon production, and continued our exploration efforts in the deep offshore Black Sea, as we prepared for acquiring new 3D seismic studies,” Gheorghe said.

In the E&P segment the total sales climbed by 7.52% on the year to 3.23 billion lei in the third quarter, whilst the EBIT remained unchanged compared to the third quarter of last year at 1.84 billion lei.

The high crude price environment continued to benefit the company’s performance in E&P and in the same time it weakened marketing sales volumes and margins, Petrom's CEO added.

In the refining and marketing (R&M) segment, third-quarter sales rose by 15.41% to 6.05 billion lei, whilst the EBIT increased 30.56% to 423 million lei. The company said that its higher R&M results are driven by improved operational performance.

OMV Petrom said its output of crude oil and natural gas liquids decreased by 1.65% to 24.41 million barrels in the nine months through September.

Consolidated gas sales increased by 1.5% on the year to 1.3 billion cubic metres in the third quarter and fell by 0.76% to 3.93 billion cubic metres in the first nine months of 2012.

The group said its hydrocarbon production fell 1.0% on the year to 16.75 million barrels of oil equivalent in the third quarter while for the January-September period it fell by 1.3% to 50.03 million barrels of oil equivalent.

Petrom, majority-owned by Austria's OMV, is included in the Bucharest Stock Exchange's 10-share blue-chip BET index. Its shares were last traded 0.72% down at 0.4150 lei at 1011 GMT on Wednesday.

(1 euro = 4.5076 Romanian lei)