By Ta Bao Long
March 19 (Bloomberg) -- PetroVietnam Fertilizer & Chemical Joint-Stock Co., Vietnam’s third-biggest company by market value, said 2009 profit may drop 28 percent on lower fertilizer prices and a plan to close a production line for repair and maintenance.
Net income may slump to 990 billion dong ($57 million), from 1.38 trillion dong in 2008, Chief Executive Officer Phan Dinh Duc said in a phone interview late yesterday.
“The deepening economic crisis and the falling crude prices that have lowered the world’s fertilizer prices will place a lot of pressure on our business plan this year,” Duc said from Ho Chi Minh City.
Fertilizer makers are trimming output as inventories rise in the global recession. Global prices for major farm inputs such as crop nutrients have fallen as much as 75 percent from records reached in mid-2008, Rabobank Groep NV said Jan. 7.
PetroVietnam dropped as much as 4.8 percent, the most in almost a month, in trading on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange. The stock was down to 29,500 dong at 10:19 a.m. local time, snapping three days of gains. The benchmark VN Index fell 1.9 percent.
The company will also suspend a plan to list shares on the Singapore stock exchange this year because of the “unfavorable global economic conditions,” Duc said, without saying when it may reconsider the sale.
The production line for urea fertilizer will be shut for 20 days in August, PetroVietnam said. The company plans to run the line at its maximum capacity for the rest of the year to reach the annual output target of 750,000 metric tons, according to a statement on its Web site.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ta Bao Long in Hanoi at longta@bloomberg.net
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