Ultrapar Increases 2003 Net Profits 11%

Brazilian gas and petrochemicals holding company Ultrapar Participacoes posted net profits of 246mn reais (US$85mn) in 2003, up 11% from 222mn reais a year earlier due to a rise in international petrochemical prices and a 5% increase in sales of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), the company said in a statement.

Net revenues rose 34% to 4bn reais from 2.995bn reais in 2002. OXITENO Petrochemical subsidiary Oxiteno, the only producer of ethylene oxide and main sub-products in the Southern Cone, increased sales volumes 9% to 474 million tons (mt), mainly because of improvements in the first half. Net sales increased 29.5% to 1.24bn reais, Ebit increased 3.6% to 207mn reais and Ebitda increased 4.56% to 243mn reais.

ULTRAGAZ Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) retail subsidiary Ultragaz increased net sales 35% to 2.62bn reais, mainly because the company bought control of Shell Gas, the LPG unit of British oil company Shell. The purchase compensated an overall 5.7% LPG market decline in 2003 because of rising sales of natural gas in the country. Sales volumes increased 4.6% to 1.36mt, of which bottled sales increased 12% to 891,400t and bulk sales fell 7% to 470,700t. Ebit fell 20.9% to 113mn reais and Ebitda fell 5.23% to 208mn reais.

ULTRACARGO Oil and chemical products logistics company Ultracargo increased its storage utilization to 197,600 cu. m. and increased its kilometrage 26% to 49.5 million km. Net sales increased 34.8% to 177mn reais, Ebit increased 39.5% to 24.7mn reais and Ebitda increased 36.5% to 40mn reais. Overall, Ultrapar increased Ebitda 2.3% to 498mn reais, total assets rose to 2.4bn reais and net investments were 404mn reais in 2003, down from 413mn reais in 2002.

About Business News Americas: Business News Americas is a multilingual news and business information service that covers the most important original stories in 11 different business sectors throughout Latin America everyday. Visit BNamericas to access our real-time news reports, 7-year archive, Fact File company database, and latest research reports.

Click here for a Free two week trial to our Latin America Oil & Gas information service.