Thursday, Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Company Ltd. (SHI), reported a swing to a profit for the first half of fiscal year 2009, even as revenues declined significantly from last year.
For the six-month period, Shanghai, China-based company reported a profit of RMB 1.00 billion, an increase of RMB 1.36 billion from last year.
On a per share basis, earnings were RMB 0.139 per basic share, compared to a loss of RMB 0.050 per basic share in the year-ago period.
Net sales for six months dropped 40.91% to RMB 19.08 billion from the same period last year. Net sales derived from petroleum products, intermediate petrochemicals, resins and plastics and synthetic fibres decreased by 45.29%, 61.70%, 32.91% and 38.86% year-on-year respectively, primarily due to decreases in product prices from decreases in raw material and energy prices, as well as decreases in sales volumes.
Crude oil produced for the period decreased 17.20% year-over-year to 4.20 million tons from the prior-year period. Total cost of crude oil processed during the period decreased 59.33% year-on-year to RMB 10.44 billion.
Production output of gasoline rose 4.65% year-on-year, while production outputs of diesel and jet fuel were down 32.67% and 10.27% year-on-year respectively.
Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical's output-to-sales ratio and receivable recovery ratio in the first half of the year were 99.82% and 98.03% respectively.
Looking ahead to the second half of 2009, the company said it is not optimistic about the operational situation as global economies are expected to enter a period of slow recovery and slow growth, and international crude oil prices may continue to hover at relatively high levels and may show a trend of going up further quarter-by-quarter.
SHI is currently trading at US$47.67, down 0.66 or 1.36%, on the NYSE.
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