Petronas Dagangan Q1 earnings down 3.7% to RM237m

KUALA LUMPUR: Petronas Dagangan Bhd's
earnings fell 3.7% to RM237.09mil in the first quarter ended March 31,
2013 from RM246.21mil a year ago due to lower margins despite revenue
had increased.
It said on Thursday its revenue, however, was up
11.2% to RM7.619bil from RM6.852mil. Earnings per share were 23.90 sen
compared with 24.80. It declared an interim dividend of 17.5 sen per
share.
The group's profit before taxation was RM327mil, a decrease of RM12.7mil compared to a year ago.
Petronas
Dagangan explained this was due to lower gross profit by RM45.6mil
arising from a decrease in Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS) prices during
the quarter, which led to lower margin despite the higher volume.
However, this was offset by lower operating expenditure by RM19.6mil and higher other income by RM12.4mil.
According
to Wikipedia, MOPS is a measure of fuel oil pricing in Singapore. It
refers to the mean price of oil traded through Singapore as per the data
from Platts, a commodity information and trading company.
MOPS
typically will have a value referring to its premium over ex-wharf
bunker fuel prices. When demand is low and the supply is good, premiums
will be low or negative. Conversely, when demand is high and the supply
is tight, premiums will be high or positive.