Malaysia's Petronas Q1 profit falls on high costs, low prices
May 31 (Reuters) - Malaysia's state energy firm Petronas, or Petroliam Nasional Berhad, reported a near 11% decline in first-quarter net profit on Friday due to higher operating costs and lower realised prices across its businesses.
Profit after tax in the three months ended March 31 was 21.3 billion ringgit ($4.53 billion), down from 23.8 billion ringgit a year ago.
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Revenue was largely flat at 89.7 billion ringgit compared to 89.3 billion ringgit in the same quarter last year, and dropped 2% from the fourth quarter of 2023.
"For the first quarter of 2024, the oil and gas market continued to be affected by the instability of the macroeconomics and geopolitical dynamics amid the energy transition that leads to a prolonged volatile pricing landscape," the energy company said in a statement.
Petronas' upstream business, its top profit-making segment, saw a 9% decline in post-tax profit to 11.32 billion ringgit due to higher product costs and operating expenses, while the gas business' profit slipped 28% to 6.28 billion ringgit due to lower liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices.
Capital investments amounted to 10.7 billion ringgit, mainly in gas and upstream projects, it said.
Domestic capital expenditure was up by 20% from the same period last year, mainly for its floating LNG project in Sabah state and the Kasawari gas field development in Sarawak state.
Petronas "will continue to execute all efforts to address the increasing market volatilities, while contending with stakeholders' expectations," it said.
($1 = 4.7050 ringgit)
(Reporting by Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru and Danial Azhar in Kuala Lumpur; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)