Thai Oil’s 2008 net profit hard hit by inventory losses
Thai Oil Plc., the country’s top oil refiner, yesterday said its 2008 net profit has nosedived to only 224 million baht from nearly 19.12 billion baht in the previous year, due to the falling oil prices that hit inventories.
Thai Oil’s managing director Viroj Mavichak said although the sale revenue for the full year had risen to 399.13 billion baht, an increase of about 138 billion baht from the previous year, due to the higher oil prices and the capacity expansions of the company and its subsidiary Thai Paraxylene, the oil prices which had declined much from the end of 2007 have resulted in inventory losses of about 14.95 billion baht.
Dr.Viroj said the company and subsidiaries for the entire year had a total of about 7.95 billion baht of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), down by over 21 billion baht from the previous year.
The company, which is 49 percent owned by Thailand’s oil and gas giant PTT Plc., had earlier reported a net loss of about 5.8 billion baht in the third quarter, which is the first loss in four years after being listed in the Stock Exchange of Thailand, and nearly 8.4 billion baht in the forth quarter of 2008 as the second quarterly loss.
However, Dr.Viroj told reporters that the company expects to return to a net profit for this year and would delay the plan to upgrade its refinery indefinitely due to the economic slowdown.
Thai Oil earlier planned to spend US$1.5-2.0 billion to upgrade its refinery this year.
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