March 1 (SeeNews) - Serbian oil and gas group NIS [BEL:NIIS] said its net profit dropped 7% year-on-year to 25.1 billion dinars ($241.4 million/212.5 million euro) in 2018.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 14% to 53.7 billion dinars, while liabilities in terms of taxes and other public revenues increased by 17% to 192.7 billion dinars, the company said in a statement on Thursday.
NIS invested 41 billion dinars in 2018, up 55%, mainly in the segment of exploration and production, as well as in the construction of deep-processing facilities. The largest individual investment project was the construction of the delayed coking unit in the Pancevo oil refinery.
Oil and gas production amounted to 1.3 million tonnes of oil equivalent, and 3.8 million tonnes of crude oil and semi-finished product were processed, an increase of 6%.
Petroleum product sales volume increased by 7% to 3.7 million tonnes, NIS said.
"In 2018, we made considerable progress in further modernisation of NIS. In line with our Business Strategy 2025, we continue building the foundations for long-term development of NIS Group, and our aim is to ensure that, at the end of this process, NIS emerges one of the most efficient energy companies in the Balkans," the CEO of NIS, Kirill Tyurdenev, said in the statement.
NIS plans to make investments worth 40 billion dinars in 2019 and focus on digitalisation in all business operations, in order to improve efficiency and ensure capacity to meet growing customer demands in both Serbia and the region, Tyurdenev noted.
NIS, 56.15%-owned by Russia's Gazprom, is one of the largest vertically integrated oil and gas companies in Southeast Europe. Its main activities include the exploration, production and processing of oil and gas, as well as the production and retail trade with a wide range of petroleum products. Serbia's government owns a 29.87% stake in NIS.
(1 euro = 118.134 dinars)
Naftna Industrija Srbije AD is among the biggest companies in SEE. You can download our SEE Top 100 ranking
here or subscribe to our free Top 100 newsletter
here