After-tax profit came to HUF 72.4 bln, well over the HUF 24.3 bln estimate by analysts polled by portfolio.hu.
Revenue fell 24% to HUF 706 bln. Cost of raw materials and consumables were down 32% at HUF 467.9 bln, but total operating costs declined at around the same rate as revenue, dropping 25% to HUF 648 bln.
Operating profit was down 13% at HUF 58 bln.
MOLʼs pre-tax profit increased 92% to HUF 60.1 bln, lifted by narrowing financial losses. The company booked a HUF 700 million financial loss in Q1 compared to a HUF 39.2 bln loss in the base period, when the forint weakened against the dollar.
Earnings per share came to HUF 819 for the period.
Revenue of MOLʼs upstream business fell 19% to HUF 89.5 bln and the segmentʼs EBITDA dropped 30% to HUF 42.2 bln due to a fall in crude prices. MOL noted that overall average realised hydrocarbon prices fell 30% year-on-year during the period. It also said average daily hydrocarbon production rose 9% to 112,000 barrels of oil equivalent.
Revenue of the downstream business fell 23% to HUF 625.3 bln, but the segmentʼs EBITDA climbed 29% to HUF 77.2 bln.
“Downstream posted record high first quarter results supported by an outstanding petrochemical contribution, offsetting the decline in upstream profits, again proving the resilience of MOL’s integrated business model,” Chairman-CEO Zsolt Hernádi (pictured) said in the report.
“MOL Group is well on track to deliver on its $2 bln-plus Clean CCS EBITDA target for 2016,” he added.
MOL had total assets of HUF 3.915 trillion at the end of March, unchanged from the end of 2015. Net assets fell 6% to HUF 1.711 tln.
Total non-current liabilities rose 12% to HUF 1.089 tln and MOLʼs gearing ratio increase to 28% from 20.6%. MOL attributed the rise in debt to refinancing of the redemption of securities issued by special-purpose vehicle Magnolia.
MOL settled a call option with Magnolia for 6,006,495 of its shares, conferring a 5.75% ownership stake, at a price of €45.9905 per share in March.
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