According to Simon Hepworth, CFO of Caltex Australia, several unplanned outages at the company’s Kurnell and Lytton refineries in February and March, along with a stronger Australian dollar that offset gains made in US dollar margins, affected the company’s earnings before interest and tax (EBIT).
Despite recent shutdowns, the company maintained that it will be able to achieve its 2008 production target. Caltex Australia also said that it was on track to produce about 10 billion liters of transport fuels in 2008.
The company is planning two more shutdowns at its 105,000 barrel per day Lytton refinery in the state of Queensland in the second half of 2008.
