MOSCOW (AFP) — Russia's largest privately-owned oil firm, Lukoil, on Wednesday reported a 71 percent drop in profits for the first quarter of 2009 compared to a year earlier as crude prices plummeted.
Lukoil's net income fell to 905 million dollars from 3.1 billion in 2008, the company said in a statement.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, were down 50 percent to 2.41 billion dollars, it said.
"It should be noted that EBITDA decreased at a slower rate than the oil price (down 53.1 percent) thanks to the company's business optimization and cost reduction," Lukoil said in the statement.
The company's revenue from sales dropped 41 percent to 14.74 billion dollars in the first quarter, according to the statement.
Meanwhile, oil production increased by 3.2 percent over the same period to 1.98 million barrels per day, Lukoil said.
Its exports rose 15.7 percent to 10.9 million metric tons from January to March 2009, the company added.
Lukoil, which is 20 percent owned by US oil giant ConocoPhillips, also noted lower taxes for the period, saying it had benefited from the government cuts on crude export taxes in 2009 after oil prices plummeted.
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