Lotte Chemical Titan said Q2, FY18 net profit was boosted by higher sales volume, lower production costs and foreign exchange gain.
KUALA LUMPUR: Lotte Chemical Titan Holding Bhd
's earnings fell in the first quarter ended March 31, 2018 mainly due to margin squeeze and foreign exchange (forex) loss.
It announced on Monday that its earnings fell 28.6% to RM244.19mil from RM342.15mil a year ago. Its profit before tax decreased by RM86.5mil to RM300mil mainly due to the margin squeeze and forex loss.
Its revenue by 15.7% to RM2.214bil from RM1.914bil due to an increase in sales volume compared with a year ago which had a statutory routine turnaround.
“Average plant utilisation was 83% compared to 58% in corresponding quarter. For Q12017, this was mainly due to statutory routine plant turnaround for cracker 2 and other downstream plants in Malaysia.
Lotte said feedstock price increased from end 2017, while product price subsequently picked up with lagging effect.
Foreign exchange loss of RM44.6mil arose as a result of the revaluation of the group's US dollar IPO funds against the ringgit held for Indonesia project capital injection as a result of the strengthening of the ringgit against the US$ in Q1 2018.
This forex loss was partially offset by forex gain of RM34.9mil from operations in Q1 2018.
Earnings per share were 10.74 sen per share compared with 19.80 sen.
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