New Britain Palm Oil Limited Revenues Drop on Lower Palm Oil Prices

27 Feb 2014 --- New Britain Palm Oil Limited, one of the world’s largest fully integrated producers of sustainable palm oil, today announces its unaudited preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2013. Revenue decreased 17.5% to USD 558.7 million (2012: USD 677.0 million) due to lower prices for palm oil.

Profit before tax decreased 78.8% to USD 17.3 million* (2012: USD 81.6 million*) excluding the changes in fair value of biological assets under IAS 41 but including the net gains of USD 8.2 million on agricultural products transferred to inventories at balance date. Including the changes in fair value of biological assets under IAS 41, the statutory profit before tax as reported in the statement of comprehensive income is USD 71.0 million (2012: USD 4.4 million)

Antonio Monteiro De Castro, Chairman of New Britain Palm Oil Limited, commented: “The past year has been very challenging, with palm oil prices remaining subdued for the first half of the year, and akin to 2012, we endured another exceptionally wet first quarter in our biggest production location (West New Britain), which hampered crop harvesting and collection. At most of our production sites, and regionally across South East Asia as a whole, FFB production was reportedly lower than expected in the second half of the year, suggesting this to be a biological yield effect.”

“The combined effects of lower palm oil prices and lower production has seen the Group’s profit before tax (excluding IAS 41 adjustments) drop significantly from USD 81.6 million in 2012 to USD 17.3 million in 2013. On the positive side the Group has made good progress in reducing its US dollar based production costs and this has been coupled with a devaluation of the Papua New Guinea Kina so that we have had both Dollar and Kina related cost reductions.”

“Looking forward the Group is well positioned to capitalise on an improving palm oil pricing environment with lower production costs and strong demand for sustainable and traceable palm oil products.”