Noble Q1 Profits Slide

HONG KONG - May 5/09 - SNS -- Noble Group Limited reported a net profit of U.S. $90.21 million on sales of $6,081 million during the first quarter ending March 31, compared to a net of $167.1 million on sales of $9,497 million during the same three month period last year.

In reporting its first quarter income, Noble said it handled 49 million metric tons (MT) of product, up from 39 million MT a year earlier, primarily due to a record performance by the Logistics, Energy, and Metals, Minerals and Ores segments.

The decline in commodity prices caused turnover to fall 36% year on year, whereas net profit for the quarter was down only 24% year on year.

Looking at the general economic picture, Noble said, "The first twelve weeks of the current year have seen a continuation of the environment that we saw in the second half of 2008. In short, equity market rallies are not a reflection of what we are yet seeing in the real world. The environment that we are dealing with has not materially improved.

"Counterparty risk remains our key concern, representing the first obstacle that we have to clear before undertaking any transaction. Our MMO supply chains feeding raw materials into heavy industry continue to face a difficult environment, whereas our segments that offer broader risk management tools and where we have built a deeper asset base continue to see decent profit opportunities."

Looking forward, Noble said it plans to complete construction of its second sugar and ethanol mill in Brazil in the next 12 months. "While the berth that we are building at Brazil's main bulk port of Santos will also be operating and handling new Noble product.

"The state of the art soybean crushing plant that we are building on the Parana River in Argentina, adjacent to our Timbues port, and which almost doubles our global crushing capacity, will be operational from the start of 2010. Finally, in South America, we also expect to have finished construction of our bulk liquids terminal in Itaqui in North East Brazil by the end of 2009."

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