Hungary’s Mol raises full-year target after record earnings

EDITH BALAZS and GABRIELLA LOVAS

BUDAPEST, Hungary (Bloomberg) -- Hungarian energy group Mol Nyrt. improved the profit guidance for 2015 after its refining unit helped post record earnings for the three months through June.

Net income jumped to 62.7 billion forint ($220 million) from 24 billion forint a year ago, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization on a clean-current cost of supplies basis rose 89% to 179.5 billion forint, the best ever result. Downstream contributed more than two-thirds to this measure, the most closely watched for the group.

The company, which benefited from strengthening refining margins and growing demand, raised its clean-CCS Ebitda target for the full year by 10% to about $2.2 billion. Downstream conditions will be “positive but less supportive” in the remainder of 2015, CFO Jozsef Simola said in a video posted on the company’s website.

“Mol’s performance will likely remain strong in the second-half of the year despite a less favorable refining environment,” David Sandor, the Budapest-based head of research at KBC Groep NV’s Hungarian brokerage, said by phone.

Mol’s shares rose 0.4% to 14,700 forint by 10:12 a.m. in Budapest. The stock has gained 27% this year, helping push the benchmark BUX stock index 36% higher in the period.

“We are well placed to benefit from the present opportunities in the downstream sector,” Chairman Zsolt Hernadi said in the report.