This news article was originally written in Spanish. It has been automatically translated for your convenience. Reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate translation, however, no automated translation is perfect nor is it intended to replace a human translator. The original article in Spanish can be viewed at El resultado operativo de Repsol YPF crece y el beneficio neto cae por saneamiento en 2004
Repsol YPF operating result grows and the net profit falls by sanitation in 2004
24/02/2005
on February 24, 2005
Repsol ypf obtained in 2004 attributable 1,950 million euros net profit, a 3.5 per cent lower to 2003, as a result of the strong special of 682 million euros sanitation has done in the exercise. The operating result reached 4,547 million euros, higher by 17.8 per cent of the previous year, which reflects the remarkable ability of generation of the company box.
The strong advance of Repsol YPF operating result was made possible by the good trend in all areas of business, which in 2004 experienced a significant increase in its results. This growth was especially important in the case of refining, the operating result increased by 36.2 per cent and its margins recorded historical records. Also, the results of the area of exploration and production grew a 12.2 per cent, to 2,638 million euros, an increase of 3 per cent in the average oil production.
The results obtained by Repsol YPF occurred in a context marked, on the one hand, by the increase in international prices of crude oil due to the increase in global demand and, on the other, by depreciation, at 9.9 percentof the dollar against the euro and the increase in the tax rate of the company, which went from 32 per cent to 37.5 per cent as a result of major exploratory results and lower tax credits through the normalization of the Argentine economy.
The operating result of the chemical area grew a 63.2 per cent, reaching the 253 million euros in the financial year 2004. This improvement is due to the increased volume of sales and international best margins of basic petrochemicals and the derivative at Argentina. On the other hand, outside of chemistry in Europe declined with respect to the year 2003.
Total sales of petrochemical products reached 4.1 million tonnes compared to 4.0 million of tonnes in 2003.
Investments in the chemical area amounted to 293 million euros, 261,7 per cent higher than the previous year. These investments were used mostly in the acquisition of the Sines complex (Portugal), the improvement of existing units and capacity expansions, including the start of the project of expansion of the complex of oxide from propylene/styrene of TarragonaIt will mean a considerable increase in the competitiveness of the business.
