Bogdan Tudorache
MOL Group revised positively its yearly current costs result, whilst in Romania, MOL’s retail fuel sales registered significant increases in Q3 2019 compared to the same period last year. Thus, in Romania, retail sales of gasoline stood at 47kt in Q3, up almost 12% compared to the third quarter of 2018, when they stood at 42kt. At the same time, diesel retail sales increased by 7.5% in Q3 2019 compared to the same period last year, from 145 kt to 156 kt.
Despite a weaker macro environment and much lower oil and gas prices, strong Q3 EBITDA allows MOL Group to raise 2019 full year guidance to „around USD 2.4 bn” from „around USD 2.3 bn.
Upstream EBITDA declined to USD 235mn in Q3, reflecting lower oil and significantly lower gas prices. The volume of hydrocarbon production slightly decreased by 1 % year-on-year in Q3 and stood at 107,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), but year to date production of 112 thousand boepd remains above the full-year guidance. Downstream segment’s Clean CCS EBITDA improved by 4 % to 272mn USD in the third quarter, as refinery margins rebounded from the H1 decrease.
Motor fuel demand continued to expand by 3% in the relevant CEE region and supported the downstrem results. MOL’s biggest ever organic investment, polyol plant construction site works boosted up in Q3 and progresses as scheduled. Consumer Services reached new all-time high quarterly result at USD 161mn, up by 10% year-on-year as both nonfuel and fuel margins expanded further, and the segment benefits from the strong regional fuel demand trends as well. MOL’s flagship Fresh Corner branded non-fuel concept rollout dynamically continues across the network, the number of reconstructed sites with Fresh Corners rose to 794 from 615 a year ago.
The Gas Midstream segment reached USD 27mn EBITDA in Q3, 8% higher than a year ago. Chairman-CEO Zsolt Hernádi commented the results: “The strong financial delivery of our resilient, integrated business model in the first 9 months allows us to upgrade our full-year 2019 Clean CCS EBITDA guidance to around USD 2.4bn (from around USD 2.3bn). We also continue to generate positive simplified free cash flow, thus fully funding even the nearly doubling organic investments, as we push forward with our strategic transformational projects. The flagship polyol plant remains on track and on schedule, with major construction site works boosted up in Q3 and overall completion now exceeding 35%.”