Astra Agro revenue may drop 5%

Astra Agro revenue may drop 5%

JAKARTA: Indonesian palm oil producer PT Astra Agro Lestari on Friday said its 2005 revenue may drop 5 percent year-on-year because of lower crude palm oil prices.

The company forecast revenue at Rp 3.13 trillion (US$301 million) this year, down from Rp 3.3 trillion in 2004, said Julie Syaftari, the company's finance director.

From January to July, Astra Agro's CPO average selling price fell 17 percent to Rp 3,288 a kilogram, due to weakening global prices of soy oil and CPO, she said.

"We expect (CPO) prices to stabilize in the second half of this year," she said.

In the first half of 2005, the company booked revenue of Rp 1.58 trillion, down 12 percent from Rp 1.79 trillion in the year- ago period.

The company's first-half sales volume, however, rose 13 percent to 388,529 metric tons, from 342,763 tons in the year-ago period.

Julie said the company is on track so far to produce 850,000 tons of CPO this year, up from 765,172 tons last year.

The company produced 478,644 tons of CPO between January and July, up 7.4 percent from 445,643 tons in the same period last year. -- Dow Jones