KUALA LUMPUR: Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd is paying out RM800 million in special dividend to its shareholders to celebrate its 10th year of listing and after posting its quarterly record RM2 billion net profit in the third quarter.
Petronas Chemical announced on Monday that its net profit surged to RM1.96 billion in the third quarter (Q3) ended September 30, 2021 from RM471 million a year ago.
Group revenue in the same quarter increased 66.8 per cent to RM5.77 billion, from RM3.46 billion, driven by higher petrochemical product prices.
For the nine-month period, Petronas Chemicals’ net profit surged to RM5.29 billion from RM1.16 billion, while revenue grew 52.5 per cent to RM16.05 billion from RM10.53 billion.
The RM800 million special dividend, or 10 sen per share, was probably the biggest announced by listed Malaysian companies in recent months.
This brings Petronas Chemicals total dividends so far to 33 sen per share, following its first interim dividend of 23 sen a share after it Q2 net profit jumped 10-fold to RM1.86 billion from RM186 million a year earlier.
Top Glove Corp Bhd recently declared a special dividend of 21 per cent, on top of a 50 per cent interim dividend, of of its RM607.95 million net profit in Q4 2021 against RM1.18 billion year-on-year.
In Q3, Top Glove announced a special single tier third interim dividend of 5.3 sen per share, together with a third interim dividend of 18 sen per share, after posting a net profit of RM2.04 billion, which fell 29 per cent from RM2.87 billion in the preceding year.
For FY2021, the total dividend declared by the world’s largest rubber glove producer amounted to about RM5.21 billion or 65.1 sen per share, or up 452 per cent from FY2020 full dividend of 11.8 sen per share.
Meanwhile, Petronas Chemicals managing director and chief executive officer Datuk Sazali Hamzah said the group had initially expected the market recovery to be moderate from Q3 this year.
However, product prices remained relatively high following Hurricane Ida in August that disrupted supply in North America and prolonged downtime in Middle Eastern urea plants amid demand recovery as Covid-19 restrictions eased.
The RM2 billion net profit maintained the group’s high earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation margin of 37 per cent.
“Although polymer prices were lower by about five per cent compared to Q2 2021, urea and methanol prices grew strongly by about 25 per cent and 10 per cent respectively.
“Through our operational and commercial excellence, we performed well by optimising our production and sales against market movements,” Sazali said in a statement.
He said the current market conditions augur well for Petronas Chemicals.
“We may see some reduction in demand due to the resurgence of Covid-19 infections and China’s policy to reduce energy intensity and limit total energy consumption. Nonetheless, other offsetting factors such as the natural gas shortage in Europe and Opec+ production decisions, may continue to support crude oil prices and in turn, the prices of our products.”
On Pengerang Integrated Complex, Sazali said the petrochemical facilities were scheduled to commence in Q1 2022.
“We look forward to this event as our commercial team has secured customers who are ready to offtake our products. It will be an exciting start to the new year for PCG,” he added.
Source: New Straits Times
