In the first three months of 2018 Hungary's energy firm MOL Group posted a $238 million net profit, or 26 percent down from the same period in the year before, the company said on Friday.

MOL, which owns a 49 percent stake in Croatia’s energy firm INA, said in its report that sales revenue increased by 20 percent, to $3.96 billion. The company’s current cost of supplies-based earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (CCS EBITDA) was $625 million, or 2 percent up from Q1 2017. The company is on track on achieving their 2017 goal of $2.2 billion EBITDA.

“In Q1 2018 we managed to further increase and improve our EBITDA from already good results, which is proof of our resilient, integrated business model, and will serve to secure yet another successful year for MOL as well as allow the work on our strategic transformation to continue. Considering that oil prices have continued to rise and that the demand across the region has remained strong, putting pressure on profit margins in refinery and petrochemical businesses, the impressive rise in profits from upstream and customer-based services have offset the lower profit posted in downstream operations,” CEO of MOL, Zsolt Hernadi, said in a press release.

In the downstream part of its business, which includes oil processing and retail sales, the company’s EBITDA fell by 33 percent quarter-on-quarter, to $218 million. Still, customer services, which posted EBITDA of $81 million, or 48 percent up from Q1 2017, had the best financial result to date.

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