By Giulia Petroni

OMV AG said Thursday that it swung to a profit in the first quarter and raised its Brent crude assumptions for the full year.

The Austrian oil-and-gas company posted a quarterly net profit of 654 million euros ($789.9 million) from a net loss of EUR159 million a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, net profit rose to EUR424 million from EUR316 million, it said.

Sales increased to EUR6.43 billion from EUR4.76 billion because of additional revenue from the consolidation of Borealis, the company said.

OMV said total upstream production for the quarter was 495,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day from 472,000 boe/d a year earlier. The company expects total production to be at around 480,000 boe/d in 2021, it said.

Downstream suffered the effects of the Covid-19 hit on the market environment, as the indicator refining margin for Europe declined 66% on year to $1.68 a barrel and the refineries utilization rate was 81%.

OMV said it expects Brent crude oil price to average between $60 a barrel and $65/bbl in the full year, compared with a previous forecast of between $50/bbl and $55/bbl.

Write to Giulia Petroni at giulia.petroni@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

04-29-21 0151ET