Reply #11: Frontier Oil's 2Q Profit Sharply Higher

[UpInArms]

http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/ap/2004/08/05/ap1492054.html

Frontier Oil Corp. on Thursday said second-quarter profit soared due to strong gasoline and diesel crack spreads and wide crude oil differentials.

Quarterly earnings were $49.5 million, or $1.81 a share, substantially improved from a loss of $992,000, or 4 cents a share, reported last year. Results include an after-tax inventory gain of about $5.7 million, or 21 cents a share, in the latest quarter, compared to a loss of $3.5 million, or 14 cents a share, for the same period of 2003. Excluding the gain in the most recent period, the company would have beat consensus estimates from a survey of analysts by Thomson First Call for earnings of $1.56 a share.

Rvenue rose 23 percent to $1.27 billion from $1.03 billion last year.

Gasoline crack spreads averaged $14.23 per barrel, nearly double the $7.24 per barrel of a year ago. The diesel crack spread averaged $7.39 per barrel in the second quarter, nearly twice the $3.91 per barrel in the second quarter of 2003. The WTI/WTS crude oil differential averaged $3.29 per barrel, well above the $2.52 per barrel average since Frontier acquired the El Dorado Refinery in November 1999. Similarly, the light/ heavy crude oil differential averaged $8.81 per barrel for the latest second quarter, well above the five-year average of $5.21 per barrel. Total crude charge for the second quarter averaged approximately 158,400 barrels per day compared to 156,200 barrels per day last year.

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