MOL’s diesel retail sales in Romania up by 10 pct in 2017

This Tuesday, MOL Group announced its financial results for 2017. In 2017 MOL’s diesel retail sales in Romania increased 10 percent comparing to 2016, while gasoline sales were stable.

MOL increased its EBITDA at group level by 14 percent comfortably outperforming its 2017 target on the back of a strong financial and operational delivery of all business segments.

MOL is the fourth largest diesel and gasoline retailer in Romania, after OMV Petrom, Rompetrol and Lukoil.

Organic capex stood at USD 1.04 billon, in line with lowered guidance and slightly higher than in the previous year. MOL continued to generate a massive amount of free cash flow establishing a strong financial framework to cover its ambitious transformational projects.

Upstream delivered USD 854 million EBITDA, an year-on-year increase by 26 percent arising from higher Brent and gas prices. Due to a strong cost discipline the segment nearly doubled the amount of free cash flow, USD 14 per each barrel produced, and turned into a major contributor to the Group’s cash generation in 2017. The daily production averaged at 107,400 barrels of oil equivalent, slightly below the yearly guidance due to lower UK contribution.

Downstream once again posted strong results and remained the main earnings contributor delivering almost half of the Group’s Clean CCS EBITDA at USD 1.18 billion. The segment increased its contribution by 2 percent from an already very high base thanks to internal efficiency programs and the still supportive external environment.

Zsolt Hernadi, MOL Group chairman-CEO, said: ” We comfortably beat our upgraded earnings targets with increasing contribution from all businesses. Upstream more than doubled its free cash flow contribution, Downstream EBITDA increased further from a high base, while Consumer Services sustained its double-digit earnings growth. Regarding strategic transformation, our flagship chemicals (polyol) project made major progress and we have been launching new, innovative mobility-related services.”