Crude Oil Surges Boost Japan Oil Firms’ 1st-Qtr. Earnings

Tokyo, Aug. 19 (Jiji Press)–Surging crude oil prices helped boost four major Japanese oil firms’ group earnings in the April- June first quarter of fiscal 2005.

The four–Nippon Oil Corp. , Idemitsu Kosan Co., Nippon Mining Holdings Inc. and Cosmo Oil Co. –successfully reflected the crude surges in their oil product prices in the period.

They also performed strongly in their oil and gas exploration operations, and petrochemical businesses.

The average price of crude oil imported by the four firms in April-June stood at around 48 dollars per barrel, up some 15 dollars from the year-before level.

Nippon Oil, Nippon Mining and Cosmo enjoyed massive valuation gains on their crude oil inventories thanks to the crude oil price rises.

But with crude prices continuing rising, it is becoming difficult for the four companies to conduct further markups for their oil products.

Following are the four firms’ group earnings in April-June in billions of yen, with year-on-year changes in parentheses:

Sales Recurring Net

Profit Profit

Nippon Oil 1,237.8 72.5 39.9

(Up 19.4 Pct) (Up 2-Fold) (Up 63.0 Pct)

Idemitsu 692.2 10.5 7.2

(Up 11.3 Pct) (Up 36.5 Pct) ( – )

Nippon Mining 636.9 46.3 28.9

(Up 14.6 Pct) (Up 94.5 Pct) (Up 2- Fold)

Cosmo 577.2 23.2 12.7

(Up 20.4 Pct) (Up 3-Fold) (Up 3.1- Fold)

[EARNINGS]END