* Sees profit ahead as it prepares for Q3 shutdown
* Q4 net loss 68 mln crowns vs 43 mln loss seen in poll
* Revenue rises 20 pct year on year, above poll estimate
* Shares fall by up to 4 pct, hit May 2010 low
(Adds comment by CFO, shutdown details, share price)
By Jason Hovet
PRAGUE, Feb 10 (Reuters) - A weak refining result and
one-off items pushed Czech downstream oil group Unipetrol
<> to a wider fourth-quarter net loss than expected,
sending shares to their lowest since May 2010.
Chief Financial Officer Mariusz Kedra said the company,
majority owned by Poland's PKN Orlen <PKNA.WA>, would show a net
profit in the first two quarters of 2011, frontloading business
before an August shutdown at its Litvinov refinery.
"We have ambitious targets for the overall year, so the
majority of this target must be realised in the first half,"
Kedra told Reuters on the sidelines of a news conference.
Unipetrol will shut its Litvinov refinery for up to 51 days,
but expects the regular maintenance to last five weeks. Company
officials said pre-stocking and other measures would mitigate
the financial impact.
Its shares fell as much as 4 percent and traded down 3.5
percent at 180 crowns in Prague by mid-afternoon, against a 0.9
percent drop in the bourse's PX index <>.
Unipetrol said it planned capital expenditure of around 3
billion crowns ($169.6 million) this year, similar to 2010. The
company did not provide guidance on 2011 earnings.
It posted on Thursday a 68 million crown fourth-quarter net
loss, dragged down by a negative refining result on the
operating level despite better margins, higher year-on-year
sales volumes and inventory gains.
Unipetrol said its profitability was hit by one-off items
including a steam cracker shutdown, costs for closing a heating
plant and technical issues with its hydrocracker.
Analysts in a Reuters poll gave an average estimate for a
loss of 43 million crowns, with estimates ranging from a 132
million crown loss to a 70 million crown profit. []
Revenue rose 20 percent year on year to 22.01 billion.
Operating profit was 122 million crowns, in line with the poll.
Unipetrol swung back to profitability at the beginning of
last year, after more than a year of loss-making quarters,
helped by rising demand for refining and petrochemical products.
But the second half of last year saw a deterioration in
market conditions and shares have gradually fallen since.
They are down 15.5 percent since the end of July, compared
with a 5.4 percent rise in Prague's PX index <>.
($1=17.70 Czech Crown)
(Editing by David Hulmes)
