PKN Orlen's good times keep flowing
PKN Orlen, the largest refiner of crude oil in Central Europe, began 2005 with a bang. After the first quarter, the company's net income was zł.631 million, a 72-percent growth on the same period in 2004. "Our results are good, if not very good," boasted its CEO, Igor Chalupec. "They reflect the good situation in our sector." Indeed, the beginning of this year saw exorbitant oil prices, which have jumped by 49 percent since the beginning of last year.
"We have recorded growth in all basic segments of the company's operations," says Paweł Szymański, PKN Orlen's chief financial officer. The oil firm's income in Q1 of this year reached zł.6.8 billion. Its share in domestic sales of liquid fuels is 62.5 percent for gasoline, 47.1 percent for diesel, and 57.7 percent for Ekoterm fuel oil. The company's main source of income is its refining, wholesale and logistics branch, which generated zł.2.9 billion. Fuel sales also rose by 5.7 percent.
The most spectacular future undertaking of the company is the zł.1.82 billion takeover of Czech company Unipetrol. The deal assumes purchasing 62.99 percent of the company's holding shares. The acquisition is scheduled for June, and 100 days after this transaction, in September, a financial model and integration plan will be officially presented.
Unipetrol holds control over two refineries whose capacity is eight million tonnes of crude oil. With 340 petrol stations in the Czech Republic and several chemical companies, the firm controls 18 percent of the Czech market. PKN Orlen also wants to raise its stake in the Ceska Rafinerska refinery to 51 percent as part of the deal, and sell about one-third of the petrol stations owned by Benzina, a division of Unipetrol, to ConocoPhillips later this year. However, Chalupec said Unipetrol's shares would not be delisted from the Prague bourse and said the company is also interested in buying another network of stations in the Czech Republic owned by Aral, a unit of British oil firm BP.
Still, PKN Orlen cannot rest on its laurels. In the area of retail sales, operating income in the first quarter was only zł.4 million. The company blames the operating loss of its Orlen Deutschland arm, which ran to zł.36 million, for this. "Low margins in Germany did not allow us to record positive results. The decision on what to do with [Orlen Deutschland] will be taken by the end of this year," said Szymański.
"We have recorded growth in all basic segments of the company's operations," says Paweł Szymański, PKN Orlen's chief financial officer. The oil firm's income in Q1 of this year reached zł.6.8 billion. Its share in domestic sales of liquid fuels is 62.5 percent for gasoline, 47.1 percent for diesel, and 57.7 percent for Ekoterm fuel oil. The company's main source of income is its refining, wholesale and logistics branch, which generated zł.2.9 billion. Fuel sales also rose by 5.7 percent.
The most spectacular future undertaking of the company is the zł.1.82 billion takeover of Czech company Unipetrol. The deal assumes purchasing 62.99 percent of the company's holding shares. The acquisition is scheduled for June, and 100 days after this transaction, in September, a financial model and integration plan will be officially presented.
Unipetrol holds control over two refineries whose capacity is eight million tonnes of crude oil. With 340 petrol stations in the Czech Republic and several chemical companies, the firm controls 18 percent of the Czech market. PKN Orlen also wants to raise its stake in the Ceska Rafinerska refinery to 51 percent as part of the deal, and sell about one-third of the petrol stations owned by Benzina, a division of Unipetrol, to ConocoPhillips later this year. However, Chalupec said Unipetrol's shares would not be delisted from the Prague bourse and said the company is also interested in buying another network of stations in the Czech Republic owned by Aral, a unit of British oil firm BP.
Still, PKN Orlen cannot rest on its laurels. In the area of retail sales, operating income in the first quarter was only zł.4 million. The company blames the operating loss of its Orlen Deutschland arm, which ran to zł.36 million, for this. "Low margins in Germany did not allow us to record positive results. The decision on what to do with [Orlen Deutschland] will be taken by the end of this year," said Szymański.
