PETROBRAS: Company Shows Profits In Q3 But Misses Market Forecast

(RTTNews) - Brazilian state-owned oil company Petrobras posted a R$266 million (US$ 68.5 million) net profit in the third quarter, up from a R$ 16.4 billion loss a year before. The result was weaker than the R$ 2.4 billion profit forecast by market analysts, and the improvement was primarily a result of much smaller asset impairments.

In the third quarter of this year, Petrobras lost R$ 222 million with asset impairments - only a fraction of the R$ 15.1 billion impact from a year earlier.

That allowed the company to report an operating profit of R$ 7.778 billion in the third quarter, from a R$ 10 billion operating loss in the same quarter of 2016.

Other balance sheet items changed little. Sales revenue in the third quarter rose 1.95% from a year before, to R$ 71.822 billion, beating market estimates of R$ 50.1 billion.

The adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization), which also excludes the effects of investment results, asset sales, foreign currency and other items -, shrank 13.65%, to R$ 19.223 billion, slightly above the R$ 18.3 billion forecast by analysts. The unadjusted EBITDA rose 7.5 times, to R$ 19.101 billion.