* Q2 net profit up 56 percent, mostly on one-off items
* Refinery output, product sales seen down 3 percent in '09 -CFO
* Chemicals to stay in red, upstream output to fall - CFO
* Analysts say structure of Q2 results poor
(Updates with, analyst, trader, stock)
By Balazs Koranyi
BUDAPEST, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Hungarian oil and gas firm MOL reported a 56 percent jump in second-quarter net profit but said the global recession would keep the pressure on its operations to make for a challenging second half.
MOL's quarterly net profit rose to 178.5 billion forints ($945 million) from 114.7 billion a year earlier and came well above analysts' expectations for 140.7 billion, but all of the increase came from one-off items, including currency gains and inventory revaluations.
"This is a recessionary year that has kept our refining margins very tight," Chief Financial Officer Jozsef Molnar said. "We expect slight improvement but no fundamental change, and margins will continue to reflect a recessionary environment."
Molnar said MOL, Hungary's biggest company by sales revenue, expected refinery throughput to drop by around 3 percent for the full year after a 2 percent drop in the second quarter and saw product sales also down by 3 percent for the full year, in line with the 3 percent drop in the first half.
MOL's upstream production will continue to fall in 2009, and Molnar estimated output at around 80,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day for the second half after 86,300 boe per day output in all of 2008.
The company's petrochemicals division will remain loss making.
"The global (chemicals) environment was the worst possible in the second quarter, and the third quarter is bringing only minimal improvement," Molnar said. "It's not realistic that the division ... would be profitable."
Q2 EARNING STRUCTURE POOR
Analysts said that MOL's second-quarter earnings figures caused no optimism as the company outperformed expectations only on an unexpected one-off item and its underlying operating performance was weak.
"The structure of the result is poor, with clean EBIT representing a mere 23.7 percent of the pre-tax profit," KBC oil analyst Peter Tordai said.
One-offs included a 103.6 billion forint net financial gain, nearly three times last year's figure, on currency movements, a 35.8 billion inventory gain, a 17 billion forint gain on the fair valuation on Croatian subsidiary INA and the termination of a risk sharing mechanism in relation to divested gas assets.
Tordai added that the company's comments on its restructuring of INA and its margin outlook could be triggers for MOL's stock but added that he saw no meaningful margin improvement in the current quarter.
At 0815 GMT, MOL shares traded up 3.5 percent at 14,870 forints while the benchmark BUX was up 2.5 percent in what traders said was a broad-based positive correction after Thursday's sharp drop and relief over MOL's figures.
"The market priced in very weak figures," a trader at a domestic brokerage said. "If you exclude the one-offs, the underlying operating figures are poor but not as poor as expected so there's some relief out there." (Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; editing by Will Waterman and Jon Loades-Carter)