KUALA LUMPUR: Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd (PCG) posted a net loss of RM789 million in the third quarter ended Sep 30, 2024 (Q3 2024) versus a net profit of RM424 million in Q3 2023, mainly for its investment in Pengerang Petrochemical Company Sdn Bhd (PPC).
This is the company's first quarterly loss since its 2010 listing.
In a filing with Bursa Malaysia, PCG said that its earnings were also dragged down by the revaluation of shareholders loans to PPC.
Its revenue, however, rose to RM7.99 billion in the quarter under review compared to RM6.78 billion in the same period last year.
PPC is a joint venture between PCG and Saudi Aramco located within the Pengerang Integrated Complex (PIC) in Johor.
The company said PPC is a US dollar functional currency company, and the recent weakening of the greenback against the ringgit resulted in unrealised forex loss of RM536 million on PCG.
Additionally, PCG also provided a US dollar-denominated shareholders loan to PPC, which led to unrealised forex loss of RM492 million.
Including forex losses from other operations of RM86 million, total forex losses in Q3 2024 stood at RM11 billion.
Conversely, the group's commodities segments recorded improvement in the quarter under review as they achieved average plant utilisation of 92 per cent.
For the cumulative nine month period, the company's net profit dropped to RM656 million versus RM1.58 billion a year ago. Revenue improved eight per cent year-on-year (YoY) to RM23.21 billion compared to RM21.45 billion in the corresponding period last year.
PCG managing director and chief executive officer Mazuin Ismail said the company has completed all performance test runs at its petrochemical units in PPC and is gearing up for commercial operations by year-end.
"It is foreseeable that the start-up of these large-scale, capital-intensive assets will have a material impact on the group's earnings, which includes currency translation effects that we saw during the quarter.
"If the US dollar continues to rebound in Q4 2024, we will see a partial reversal of the unrealised forex loss," Mazuin said in a statement.