Malaysian energy giant Petronas reported a significant jump in profit for the third quarter and the first nine months of 2017.
According to the company’s quarterly report, the profit after tax for the third quarter jumped 63 percent to 9,96 billion Malaysian ringgit ($2.37 billion) due to higher revenues and lower impairment on assets and well costs.
This was partially offset by higher tax expenses, product costs and amortization of Oil and Gas Properties.
Results have also improved for the first nine months with profit after tax reaching 27.3 billion Malaysian ringgit ($6.63 billion) showing an increase of over 100 percent, the company said.
This jump is mainly due to higher revenue and lower net impairment on assets and well costs. However, it was partially offset by higher tax expenses, amortization of OGP, net foreign exchange losses, the non-FID costs for Pacific NorthWest LNG project in Canada, petroleum proceeds and net product and production costs.
Total LNG sales volume for the quarter was higher by 0.1 million tones compared to the corresponding quarter last year reaching 7.22 million tons. The rise was mainly attributable to higher volume from Train 9 in Bintulu, Gladstone LNG Train 2 and Egyptian LNG, coupled with new volumes from the Petronas Floating LNG unit.
For the first nine months, total LNG sales volume reached 21.91 million tons, 0.42 million tons higher compared to the corresponding period in 2016.
Going forward, the company expects its overall year-end performance to be better than last year as oil price has shown modest recovery.