Profit spill

Poland's biggest oil refiners, Orlen and Lotos, saw larger-than-expected net profit drops in Q3. Both firms stressed, however, that their basic finances were sound in the face of the global economic crisis.

Orlen, the bigger of the two firms, saw revenues of zł.23 billion and a net profit of zł.21 million, marking a 34-percent increase and a 96-percent decrease on Q3 2007's results, respectively. The oil giant's Q1-Q3 results, however, improved compared to last year - revenues grew 35 percent y/y during that period and net profit increased by 34 percent.

"In the reporting period, Orlen Group significantly  increased oil processing volumes [20 percent] and its share of production of medium distillates [17 percent] such as diesel, light heating oil and aviation fuel," the firm said in a statement.

Meanwhile, in Q3 Lotos had net revenues of zł.4.7 billion and a net loss of zł.237.9 million, a y/y increase of 35 percent and a fall of 203 percent, respectively. The drop in net profit was, the firm noted, caused by "very unfavorable macroeconomic conditions."

For the Q1-Q3 period, Lotos had net revenues of zł.12.5 billion (a 37.2 percent y/y increase) and a net profit of zł.428.1 million (a 19.6 percent drop). The firm admitted that it could see a Q4 loss as well.

"If the current situation on the financial markets were to continue, it cannot be excluded that we could have a loss on financial activities [in Q4]," Mariusz Machajewski, Lotos' director of finance, told reporters last week.

The results of both refiners underperformed market expectations.