The most profitable Romanian company, oil&gas producer OMV Petrom Thursday reported a 20 percent decrease in third-quarter net profit, mainly due to lower sales and an increase in the property tax, according to a press release.
“Our sound financial discipline in the last years and the strict capital allocation allowed us to deliver on our targets for the first nine months, despite recent oil price volatility. In E&P, we managed to broadly stabilize production in Romania and implemented our planned CAPEXX projects. This year we have made the largest investments in the exploration activity since privatization, running a complex exploration program on shore and offshore, with 9 exploration wells drilled so far. In the Black Sea, we are processing the data from Domino-2, while the Ocean Endeavour rig is drilling the Pelican South-1 exploration well, to test a new geological structure of the Neptun Block. The completion of the Petrobrazi refinery modernization is delivering the planned increase of USD 5/bbl in the indicator refining margin which contributed to the improved R&M result. In turn, in the G&P business challenges remained due to lower gas market demand and depressed electricity prices,” Mariana Gheorghe CEO OMV Petrom said.
Sales decreased 11 percent in January – September, from RON 18.1 billion to RON 16.2 billion (EUR 3.64 billion), and net profit dropped 34 percent to RON 2.4 billion (EUR 539.5 million). Also, gas sales dropped 23 percent to RON 798 million. In the same time, the profit fell to RON 1.02 billion (USD288 million) from RON 1.27 billion in the third quarter of the last year as both the gas and power business had a negative contribution “triggered by adverse market conditions,” the company said.
According to Mariana Gheorghe, in light of the volatile and weaker market fundamentals OMV Petrom is reviewing its investment plans for 2015, which will be announced together with the Group’s fourth quarter and 2014 preliminary results on February 19, 2015. “A stable and predictable investment-friendly fiscal and regulatory environment remains a key prerequisite for our future CAPEXX program,” Petrom official said.