Tüpraş posts profit despite Iranian woes

KOCAELİ - Hürriyet Daily News

Tüpraş, centered in the northwestern Kocaeli province neighboring Istanbul, is Turkey’s main produer and exporter of petroleum products. DHA photo

Tüpraş, Turkey’s sole private oil refiner, increased its net profits slightly to 983 million Turkish Liras in the first nine months of the year compared to 921 million liras in the same period in 2011, marking a 6.4 percent rise. The company’s third-quarter net profits recorded a 56 percent increase to 444.8 million liras, mainly due to high sales and balanced crude prices.

This came amid fresh woes in buying crude oil from Iran due to Western sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
The company said in a filing to the Istanbul Stock Exchange (İMKB) yesterday that its sales increased to 12.9 billion liras in the quarter.

“Along with an increase in sale volumes, the exchange rate and the higher international prices of petroleum goods compared to last year contributed to profits from sales surpassing the 2011 figures by 18.4 percent,” it said of the figures from the first nine months.

The volume of the company’s total sales in this period increased to 19 million tons, 5 percent above the figure for the same period.

The company also said that it has finalized some 42 percent of its $2.4 billion fuel oil facility as of October.
The company has made 1.5 billion liras of overall investments this year.