Lithuanian Industrial Production Plunges as Refinery Closes
Lithuanian industrial production fell the most in 32 months in May as energy output plunged because of the closure of the Orlen Lietuva AB oil refinery for maintenance.
Production tumbled 14.6 percent, the biggest drop since September 2009, compared with a 6.8 percent increase in April, the statistics office, based in the capital, Vilnius, said today in a statement on its website. Manufacturing excluding energy products grew 8.7 percent, compared with a 1.7 percent advance the previous month.
The Baltic nation’s largest company by sales, Orlen Lietuva, the Lithuanian unit of Poland’s PKN Orlen SA, halted production for a month to carry out the biggest upgrades and repairs in the refinery’s history. Output resumed June 6.
“The May results are somewhat reassuring because industrial output continues to rise” when the impact of the refinery is excluded, said Rokas Bancevicius, an economist at DnB Bank AB in Vilnius.
The yield on Lithuania’s 2022 dollar bond fell 0.1 percentage point today to 4.8 percent, the lowest on record.
To contact the reporter on this story: Milda Seputyte in Vilnius at mseputyte@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net
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