SK Innovation Co., the holding company of South Korea's top refiner SK Energy Co., said Friday that it has returned to profit in the second quarter from a year earlier thanks to good performance by its refinery unit.

Net income came to 271 billion won (US$243.6 million) in the April-June period, compared with a net loss of 238.4 billion won a year ago, SK Innovation said in a regulatory filing.

Sales, however, fell 10.7 percent to 16.85 trillion won in the period, while the company posted an operating profit of 395.5 billion won, compared with an operating loss of 132.4 billion won from a year ago.

Shares of SK Innovation rose 3.4 percent to 152,000 won as of 11:18 a.m. on the Seoul bourse.

"The second-quarter good results stemmed from SK Energy's turnaround from a year ago when the refinery unit posted a huge operating loss," SK Innovation said.

SK Energy posted 12.7 trillion won in sales and 38.7 billion won in operating profit in the second quarter.

The strong performances by other subsidiaries like SK Global Chemical Co. and SK Lubricants Co. also contributed to SK Innovation's turnaround in the second quarter, the holding company said.

SK Global Chemical logged an operating profit of 223.6 billion won, while SK Lubricants posted 29.2 billion won in operating profit.

Compared with the previous quarter, SK Innovation showed sputtering results in the second quarter. Its net profit fell 0.4 percent on-quarter in the second quarter. While sales fell 6.9 percent in the same period, operating profit dropped a whopping 43.2 percent.

"Although the company achieved a turnaround in operating profit year-on-year, the quarter-on-quarter performance was weaker due to the bearish market conditions and depressed global economy," Cha Sung-keun, the head of Finance Office at SK Innovation, was quoted in the company's English-language statement on the second-quarter earnings. (Yonhap News)