(LEAD) S-Oil-Q4 earnings
(LEAD) S-Oil swings to red in Q4 on falling oil prices
(ATTN: UPDATES with more details throughout; COMBINES earlier story slugged 'S-Oil-2022 earnings'; ADDS byline)
By Kim Seung-yeon
SEOUL, Feb. 1 (Yonhap) -- S-Oil Corp. said Wednesday it shifted to the red in the fourth-quarter as a drop in global oil prices resulting in inventory losses hurt its bottom line.
The company logged an operating loss of 157.5 billion won (US$127.9 million) in the October-December period, compared with an operating profit of 391.3 billion won the previous year.
Sales reached 10.6 trillion won in the fourth quarter, up 27.8 percent from a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Its net profit fell 19.8 percent on-year to 231.3 billion won.
"While refining margins remain solid, the company reported an operating loss due to a one-off factor from inventory losses incurred from the fall in oil prices amid recession concerns," S-Oil said.
For all of 2022, the company's operating income rose 59.2 percent on-year to 3.4 trillion won. Annual sales grew 54.6 percent to 42.44 trillion won in the same period.
The sales growth for the year came on the back of an overall uptrend in oil prices and recovery in petroleum demand, S-Oil said.
S-Oil posted a net profit of 2.11 trillion won for 2022. It said it plans to use it for the 9 trillion won "Shaheen" petrochemical project under way in South Korea's southeastern city of Ulsan.
S-Oil said it expects the cracking margin, a key gauge of profitability for refiners, to improve this year due to the tight global supply in refining and the European Union's imminent import ban on Russian petroleum products.
China's COVID-19 reopening and post-pandemic recovery in jet fuel demand are also among the factors that will help boost the margin, it said.
Saudi Arabia's state oil giant Aramco is currently the largest shareholder of S-Oil, with a 63.4 percent stake.
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