KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 5 – State oil firm Petronas Group has posted RM53 billion net profit for the nine months ended December 31, 2011, excluding gains, owing to higher margins from improved plant performance.

Group revenue also improved by 26.9 per cent from the 2010/11 financial year to RM222.8 billion on the back of higher realised prices and improved gas sales volume.

Gross operating profit after tax surged 30 per cent to RM52.4 billion from the previous financial year, with the group’s energy and production division recording the highest incremental contribution on stronger crude prices.

But higher crude oil prices also dragged Petronas’s downstream operating profit down 14 per cent to RM4.4 billion.

Petronas president and chief executive Datuk Shamsul Azhar Abbas cautioned that the firm’s growth will be stagnant in 2012 and 2013 owing mainly to domestic oil field depletion and slower worldwide demand.

“The challenge remains the same... Only from 2014 onwards will we see a better production profile due to the bigger projects we’re embarking on,” he told reporters at the Petronas headquarters today.

Newly independent South Sudan’s call to freeze oil production, amounting to some 135,000 barrels per day for Petronas, will have an impact on group performance, Shamsul Azhar said.

Malaysia’s decision to stop importing oil from Iran will also have some impact on margins, as oil from alternative sources will likely cost the group US$2.00-2.50 more per barrel, he said.

Shamsul Azhar added that Petronas was expecting crude prices next year to fall between US$85 and US$90 owing to the demand destruction from the sustained eurozone crisis.

“We reckon that moving forward things are going to be weak,” he said, noting that Petronas has projected that Europe will enter a recession within the coming year or so.