July 11 (SeeNews) - Romania's top oil and gas group OMV Petrom [BSE:SNP] said on Wednesday that a 45-day turnaround at its refinery in Romania is expected to have a negative impact on the company's financial results for the second quarter of the year.
The turnaround is expected to have impacted the second-quarter Downstream Oil Clean CCS Operating result by around 150 million lei ($38 million/32 million euro) compared to the first quarter, OMV Petrom said in a statement filed to the Bucharest Stock Exchange.
It also led to higher levels of own crude oil stored, thus translating into not yet realised profits at the group level of approximately 260 million lei, which are eliminated in the consolidation line, the company added.
The works, which required a 45 million euro ($52 million) investment, lasted for approximately six weeks and consisted of maintenance and modernisation, inspection and verification of facilities, as well as investments in a series of the main units of the refinery in Ploiesti.
The Petrobrazi refinery has an annual refining capacity of 4.5 million tonnes of crude oil, as its output can meet the fuel demand of 3 million cars per year.
OMV Petrom posted a 854 million lei net profit in the first three months of 2018, up 38% compared to the same period of last year.
The increase in the company's net profit was backed by a rise of 5% in sales to 4.87 billion lei in the January-March period.
Shares of blue chip OMV Petrom traded 0.46% lower at 3270 lei as at 1109 CET on Wednesday on the Bucharest Stock Exchange.
(1 euro=4.6587 lei)