OMV Petrom's three-quarter net income at 1.85 bln lei, up twofold plus from year ago

OMV Petrom Group posted a three-quarter net income of 1.848 bln lei, more than two times higher (111 pct) than the net 878 ml lei registered in the similar period of the year before, shows the unaudited financial report released on Thursday by the company. 

The clean CCS net income attributable to company stockholders was of 2.054 bln lei, by 128 percent higher from the same period of the year before. The clean CCS earnings per share stood at 0.0363 lei. 

The group's sales in the first nine months of the year totaled 14.294 bln lei, up 20 percent from the 11.953 bln lei registered in the same period of the year before. 

"In Q3/17, we enjoyed another quarter with strong macroeconomic fundamentals supporting higher demand for our products and higher sales volumes. We benefitted from increased commodity prices and very strong refining margins. In addition, we continued our strict cost discipline to increase our competitive position and moved forward with investments. As a result, our 9m/17 Clean CCS Operating Result reached RON 2.7 bn, with both Upstream and Downstream showing significant increases. In Upstream, further reduced production costs overcompensated the impact of production decline. In Downstream Oil, the solid results reflected higher sales volumes, mostly in retail, and a continued high asset utilisation. Downstream Gas had an improved performance and benefitted from the booking of insurance revenues for the Brazi power plant. The free cash flow improvement was a result of higher operating cash flow and lower investments," said OMV Petrom CEO Mariana Gheorghe. 

Austrian group OMV holds a 51.01 pct majority stake in OMV Petrom, while Romania's Ministry of Energy holds 20.64 pct of the company's stake. Petrom is Romania's largest oil and gas company with activities in the business segments Upstream (Exploration and Production), Downstream Oil (Refining and Marketing), Downstream Gas (Gas and Energy). AGERPRES .