The financial rebound of leading oil firm Petron Corporation is now on solid footing as it concluded this year’s first half with P3.87 billion net income, a phenomenal ricochet from P14.24 billion net loss in the same period last year.
The oil firm’s operating income at P8.95 billion similarly made a strong comeback from a crashing P14.54 billion loss in the prior year.
Petron President and CEO Ramon S. Ang intimated that “though we continue to face some challenges, we have seen tremendous progress this year.”
He qualified that “the increase in demand and continued improvement in international prices indicate that we are slowly but surely regaining lost ground as an industry.”
On the revenue sphere, the country’s lone oil refiner reported that the combined outcome for its Philippine and Malaysian market operations had been up 14-percent to P174.13 billion from last year’s P152.36 billion in the same six-month span.
The rally in prices in the world market, with benchmark Dubai crude topping $72 per barrel as of end-June this year or higher by 44-percent from December level, partly contributed to the more robust revenue generation of the oil company.
“The bullish market was driven by the conservative stance of major oil producers in supply management, boosted by optimistic market sentiments with the global vaccination rollouts and gradual reopening of economies,” Petron stated.
Ang noted that “our financial performance in Petron, due in no small part to our recovery efforts and prudent use of resources, is proving to be a complete turnaround from last year which we hope to sustain as we continue to move past the pandemic slump.”
As emphasized, savings on operating expenses and financing costs helped prop the oil company’s financial performance within the January-June stretch this year.
In terms of overall sales volume, the company indicated that this was 7.0-percent lower vis-à-vis the comparative first semester in 2020; and this has been mainly attributed to what is seen as continued weaker industrial demand because of the lingering health crisis.
“The slowdown in sales to industrial accounts was, however, partially offset by the gradual improvement in the retail segment,” Petron said.
At the retail segment or sales at service stations, this climbed by 12-percent; while volumes for lubes had gone up by remarkable 50-percent.
Petron spotlighted that such outcomes reflected “favorable performance of Petron’s world-class products in both the Philippines and Malaysia.”
Despite continuing depressed regional refining margins, Petron also resumed recently the operations of its Limay refinery in Bataan and this was decided on as crude prices track steady recovery.
On the petrochemical sub-segment of the oil firm’s business, it specified that this posted “significant improvement on the back of higher demand.”