KUALA LUMPUR : Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) saw its profit after tax grow 12% to RM23.5bil for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2016, from RM20.9bil in 2015.
The national oil company said on Tuesday its FY16 earnings growth was due to lower operating expenditure and tax expenses partially offset by lower average prices.
During the year in review, Petronas' group revenue fell 17% to RM 204.9bil from RM 247.7bil in 2015.
The decrease reflected the lower average prices in line with the downward trend of key benchmark prices (dated Brent and Japan Customs Cleared Crude) coupled with the impact of lower sales volume.
“Cumulative 2016 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was RM70.4bil compared to RM75.5bil recorded in 2015,” it said.
Cash flows from the group's operating activities also decreased to RM53.8bil in 2016 from RM69.6bil in 2015 due to lower average prices, partially offset by lower tax paid.
Commenting on the FY16 financial results, Petronas said these results showed improvement despite the challenging market environment.
“This was the result of the deliberate sequential measures undertaken by the group in response to the low oil price environment which included the group's transformation efforts and its continuous pursuit to optimise cost and improve efficiency,” it said.
Petronas said its continuous efforts to reduce cost had contributed in 8% or RM4.1bil decrease in controllable costs to RM49.1bil compared to RM53.2bil in 2015.
Its total assests and shareholders' equity rose to RM603.3bil and RM380.3bil respectively, contributed by the impact of weakening of the Ringgit against the US dollar exchnage and favourable movement on fair value of available-for-sale financial assets.
For the fourth quarter of FY16 (Q4FY16), its profit before tax jumped 85% to RM11.3bil from the RM6.1bil in the third quarter of FY16 (Q3FY16). Revenue increased by 20% to RM58.6bil from RM48.7bil.
EBITDA was up 44% to RM21.9bil from RM15.2bil while EBITDA margins increase by 6% to 37.4% from 31.2%.
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