Rompetrol Group posted 2.34 billion dollar turnover in 2005, an increase of 45% on the previous year, while the operating profit progressed by 62% to 164m dollars, a company release shows.
Rompetrol officials say the positive trend of the financial indicators is explained by the heavy fluctuations of the petroleum products market.
Rompetrol”s chairman, Dinu Patriciu, believes this trend will maintain this year, due to the increase in the demand for petroleum products and to the investment projects slated to be developed.
“The demand for petroleum products will become higher and higher; subsequently, the investments the Rompetrol Group will be making in 2006 will be significant, in order to consolidate and diversify the offer,” Patriciu stated.
Furthermore, the group anticipates the takeover of French company Dyneff, a petroleum products distributor, will double the turnover of Rompetrol in 2006.
Rompetrol Rafinare (Rompetrol Refining), a subsidiary of the group witnessed an consolidated operating profit (EBITDA) growth of 74 percent to 162 million dollars last year.
The turnover of Rompetrol Rafinare increased by 40 percent last year to a total of 2.15 billion dollars.
The net profit of this company amounted to 80m dollars in 2005, 13 times higher than in 2004, when it stood at 6 million dollars.
As for the investment programme, the release shows that Rompetrol has already announced a 260 million-dollar investment plan for upgrades on the Petromidia refinery by 2007. This will boost the refinery”s processing capacity from 3.8 million tonnes to 5 million tonnes a year. “The production increase mainly targets boosting regional exports to those markets where the group is and will be present. Rompetrol is also planning 100 million-dollar investments to reopen the petrochemical unit of Petromidia, a capacity unused in the last ten years,” the release shows. According to the company”s data, the amount of taxes paid to the state budget by Rompetrol was in excess of 730m dollars in 2005.