NESTE OIL REPORTS GOOD PROFITS DESPITE MAINTENANCE SHUTDOWN AT PORVOO

Neste Oil's production volumes were significantly reduced in the third quarter by a scheduled five-week maintenance shutdown at the Porvoo refinery, as anticipated. Despite lower volumes, Neste Oil continued to show strong profitability.

 

Highlights:

Third-quarter sales of EUR 2,585 million (carve-out Q3/04: 2,091 million)

Comparable operating profit of EUR 99 million (carve-out: 111 million)

Operating profit of EUR 115 million (carve-out: 161 million)

Nine-month earnings per share of EUR 1.49 (carve-out: 1.74); in the third quarter EUR 0.41 (carve-out: 0.54)

Nine-month cumulative cash flow from operations of EUR 324 million (carve-out 1-9/04: 390 million)

High investment activity and increase in working capital resulted to higher net debt of EUR 1,160 million (31 Dec 2004: 969 million)

Maintenance shutdown at Porvoo completed successfully

 

President & CEO Risto Rinne:

"Our main challenge in the third quarter was the scheduled five-week maintenance shutdown at the Porvoo refinery. We were able to complete this major effort two weeks faster than in 2001. Unfortunately the shutdown coincided with peak prices and the company could not take the most out of the market. The successful completion of the shutdown, however, will ensure that the Porvoo refinery will remain one of the leading complex refineries in Europe. In addition to maintenance work, many important investment projects were advanced at the site, most notably those related to the Diesel project and construction work of our new biodiesel plant."

 

"Despite the negative impact of the shutdown on our volumes, we still delivered a good profit, confirming the success of our strategy of focusing on high-quality, clean traffic fuels."

 

Further information:

 

Risto Rinne, President & CEO, tel. +358 10 458 4990

Petri Pentti, CFO, tel. +358 10 458 4490

 

 

A press conference in Finnish on the third-quarter results for 2005 will be held today, 25 October 2005, at 11:30 am EET at Hotel Kämp in conference room Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Pohjoisesplanadi 29, Helsinki. www.nesteoil.com will feature English versions of the presentation materials.

A conference call in English for investors and analysts will be held today, 25 October 2005, at 3:00 pm EET. The call-in numbers are as follows: UK: +44(0)20 7162 0080, US: +1 334 323 6201. Use the password: Neste Oil. An instant replay of the call will be available until 1 November 2005 at +44(0)20 7031 4064 for the UK and +1 954 334 0342 for the US, using access code 679013.