Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil said today higher output and prices boosted its quarterly pre-tax profit by a greater-than-expected 24 per cent.
The company, which is 82 per cent owned by the Norwegian state, also reaffirmed its long-term targets as it seeks to put a bribery scandal behind it.
Profit before taxes at Statoil, the Nordic region's biggest company by turnover ahead of Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia, jumped to 13.01 billion crowns ($1.86 billion) in the July-to-September quarter from 10.46 billion a year earlier.
The figures beat an average forecast in a Reuters poll of billion.
The company attributed the improvement in profit to increased sales, lower costs and higher oil and gas prices measured in Norwegian crowns.
Statoil's oil and gas output rose to 983,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day from 957,000 but slightly lagged a forecast of 1.01 million. The company said 2003 output would be flat at 1.07 million boe per day, with fourth-quarter output of 1.17 million per day.
Norwegian police are probing Statoil over a plan to pay $15.2 million to a London-based consultancy, suspecting they might be bribes to win contracts in Iran.
Analysts said Statoil's lingering internal woes had been overshadowed by the arrest of the head of Russian oil giant YUKOS on fraud and tax evasion charges at the weekend.