Petrom, the biggest company in Romania, controlled by Austrian OMV group reported 1.42 billion RON (403 million euros) net income for the first half of the year, 2.3 times higher than in the corresponding period of 2005.
This came as a result of the fast-paced increase in the price of oil worldwide and the rise in the amount of products sold.
Mariana Gheorghe, Petrom's new CEO, says she hopes the company will improve its results by the end of the year, but this does depends on the volatility of the prices on the international market. The 2006 budget projects 520 million-euro net income and 3 billion-euro turnover.
The exploration and production unit remains the Romanian petroleum company's bonanza, generating a half-year EBITDA of 2.5 billion RON (over 700 million euros).
The refining unit witnessed contrasting fortunes, posting H1 operating losses of 407 million RON (approximately 115 million euros). The losses of Petrom's refining division influenced the results of the OMV group, as well. The Austrians reported a net profit of 904 million euros to the Vienna Stock Exchange.
Petrom's personnel was cut by 25% over the past year, to 38,136 employees. This was mainly because of the introduction of a new system for operating filling stations, which takes the related personnel out of the company's structure.
Nonetheless, the results posted by Petrom were lower than expected by some of the main analysts on the market.
"The results for the second quarter of the year were significantly lower than estimated by ING Bank, by 34.44% for EBITDA and 44.29% for the net profit. Although our model factored in the weaker results on the refining and distribution segment, we were confident Petrom would manage to post very strong results on the exploitation segment by taking advantage of the rise in the petroleum price worldwide," explained Nico
