* Q1 net profit 309 million crowns vs f'cast 253 mln
* CFO expects H1 profit, hard to predict Q2
* Revenue rises 24 percent, sees demand rise
* Shares up 2.5 pct, hit highest since Sept 2008
(Recasts with shares, adds company comment)
By Jan Korselt
PRAGUE, May 13 (Reuters) - Shares in Unipetrol <>
hit a 20-month high on Thursday after the Czech downstream oil
group swung to a bigger-than-expected first-quarter net profit.
Unipetrol, 63 percent owned by Poland's PKN Orlen <PKNA.WA>,
booked a profit of 309 million crowns ($15 million), ending a
string of five straight quarterly losses and beating the mean
estimate for a 253 million crown profit seen in a Reuters poll.
The shares jumped around 5 percent to their highest level
since September 2008 before paring gains and trading up 2.5
percent at 205 crowns by 1050 GMT, outpacing a flat Prague
market.
Operating profit beat expectations at 517 million crowns,
helped by a tripling of refinery margins along with cost cutting
and a 200 million crowns boost from inventory revaluations after
crude price moves.
Unipetrol said demand for refinery and petrochemical
products was rising, albeit at a slow pace, and it expected to
stay in profit for the first half of the year.
"Taking into consideration the results for the first quarter
together for the half year I expect to keep in profit," Chief
Financial Officer Wojciech Ostrowski told Reuters.
"The problem is that every day we can see such big
differences that a prediction is difficult."
Ostrowski said market conditions in the refinery segment
were still volatile, making the outlook unclear. The company
would also try to compensate for a domestic consumption drop
with higher exports.
Revenue in the first quarter rose 24 percent year-on-year to
18.0 billion crowns, in line with analyst estimates.
Unipetrol saw demand sink last year in central Europe's
economic downturn, sending the group into a series of losses
which analysts said could still return.
"Margins are quite volatile and I'm afraid this state will
persist until the end of the year," Komercni Banka analyst
Miroslav Adamkovic said.
"Most of the (first quarter) improvement was a revaluation
of inventory ... It is hard to say what the second or third
quarter can look like."
Unipetrol shares have risen 47 percent this year, well above
a 10 percent rise in Prague's benchmark index <>.
Unipetrol's parent, PKN Orlen, also swung to a
higher-than-expected net profit as one-off gains tied to rising
oil prices and a weaker zloty offset the weaker refining
segment. []
(Writing by Jason Hovet; Editing by Hans Peters and David
Holmes)
($1 = 20.10 Czech crowns)
