ข่าวแจ้งตลาดหลักทรัพย์

Net Profit Margin % 1.9 0.2 Return on Equity % 8.8 1.2 Efficiency Ratios Return on Total Assets % 4.3 0.5 Assets Turnover Time 2.3 2.6 Financial Policy Ratios Debt to Equity 1/ Time 0.5 0.7 Remark: Calculation from consolidated financial statements 1/ Calculation from Interest Bearing Debt For the year 2007 the Company has made net profit of Baht 1,764 million, higher than last year which was at Baht 195 million, as it makes improvement of profitability ratio and efficiency ratio. Debt to equity ratio was improved as well since equity value was increasing. However, the current ratio and quick ratio were a bit deteriorated due to cash used for progress payment under PQI contracts. 6. Factors and major influences that may affect the Company's performance or financial status in the future Major factors affected the performance were the marketing margin and gross refining margin. For the marketing margin, since the oil prices were rapidly increased especially after the floating of gasoline and diesel price, the retail price could increase at a slower rate than the cost increased which depressed the marketing margin to be at a low level and this incident would slow down the demand for oil consumption; in other hand, if the oil prices were decreased, the marketing margin and oil consumption would increase as well. For the refining margin, as a simple refinery having a high proportion of fuel oil production and the fact that fuel oil price is always lower than crude price, the Company's gross refining margin was capped to a certain level depending on the fuel oil price for each period. Thus the Company has had necessity to attain the long-term resolution for reducing fuel oil production to enhance gross refining margin to be at the same level of the industry's. Therefore, the Company has adopted the Product Quality Improvement project (PQI) by installing the hydro-cracking unit and other associated units, which will reduce production of fuel oil to the near level of other local and foreign refineries and hence become a complex refinery. The Company expects that the project will increase EBITDA from average Baht 2,000-4,000 million to approximately Baht 6,000 - 8,000 million after the project reach its completion subject to oil price at the period. Currently PQI project has started its construction, which total project cost (included contingency reserve) totaling Baht 15,369 million or equivalent to USD 378 million. The Company has appointed CTCI Overseas Corporation Limited and CTCI (Thailand) Co., Ltd. to be contractors of the PQI under fixed price, date certain and performance guaranteed arrangement. The Company has achieved its financial closure for sources of funds for the project since May 16, 2006. The project is now under construction and overall progress as of December 2007 was 68.2% as compare to the revised plan of 65.5. The company has discussed with the main contractor (CTCI) for preparation of risk management plans. However, as major equipments/machineries which required special attention due to specific design as well as materials and require longer time for fabrication collectively called Long Lead Items (LLIs) are very important for the overall construction schedule, the company had already identified 9 items to be under LLIs category and had preordered the LLIs since late 2005. Currently, all 9 LLIs has been completed and already been successfully installed. As the LLIs have been completed, the company confident that the potential delay of other equipments/ constructions is manageable and the construction completion is achievable within 2008. The oil prices will still be major parameters effecting operating result of the Company. Furthermore, another factor which may have effect on the Company's performance is the foreign exchange fluctuation (mostly Baht and USD). The Company purchases oil on US dollar term and sell its product on US dollar related basis and records transactions as trade payable and trade receivable respectively. Since the Company has assets greater than liabilities, the appreciation of Thai Baht will cause the decrease in net assets and vise versa. However, the Company has had the policy to leveling differences of US dollar assets and liabilities whenever it becomes appropriate. In the mean time, the Company has partly mitigated this risk by utilizing some financial instruments. The Company has appointed a specific department and from a special committee called Price Risk Management Committee (PRMC) which consists of top management executives to keep a close look on the situation and to give policy to perform risk management on the matter.