JX Holdings expected to post group pretax loss

Hit by falling crude oil prices and weaker demand for gasoline, JX Holdings Inc. is expected to post a group pretax loss of roughly JPY40 billion (US$508.1 million) in the April-June quarter. If estimates are correct, this would be the first time the company has posted a pretax loss for a quarter since its stock listing in 2010. A year earlier, JX Holdings Inc., a major energy and materials firm in Japan, reported a pretax profit of JPY145.1 billion (US$1.8 billion). At the company’s mainstay oil refining and sales operations, refinery profit margins shrank when the crude oil price fell before the company could pass on higher prices which it paid at the beginning of the quarter onto wholesale prices. Sales in the April-June period were up by 3% on the year to roughly JPY2.5 trillion (US$31.76 billion). (July 18, 2012)