	preussag says payment of a dividend not certain a spokesman for preussag ag prsg f said it was not yet certain whether the company would pay a dividend on results he was commenting on a preussag statement which said results in were lower than in preussag has frequently said its results came under further pressure in following a difficult year in managing board chairman guenther sassmannshausen said in december the board would prefer to stick to its policy of not dipping into reserves to pay dividends the spokesman noted the final dividend decision rests with the supervisory board the preussag statement said results fell in compared with because declines in ings in metals oil and shipping were not entirely compensated by positive trends in the group s other divisions the spokesman said it was not clear whether the domestic group would show a net profit in adding this would depend partly on the level of provisions preussag cut its dividend to eight marks from nine marks on results after parent company net profit dropped to mln marks from mln the year before the preussag world group made a net loss of mln marks in after a net profit of mln the year before domestic group net profit fell to mln from mln the statement said its results in were affected by unsatisfactory selling prices for metals and oil as well as by poor use of capacity in the supply ship sector the reduction in natural gas prices in the fourth quarter of to reflect earlier falls in oil prices was an additional factor behind the drop in results preussag said rationalization measures already introduced would not begin to take full effect until this year preussag s domestic group turnover rose to billion marks in from billion in helped by the first time consolidation of mln marks of turnover from its majority owned oil and gas subsidiary c deilmann ag domestic group turnover in the fourth quarter alone was billion marks it said without giving comparison figures preussag said its domestic crude oil production fell pct to tonnes in while foreign oil production rose to tonnes from tonnes preussag said its amalgamated metal corporation plc amc subsidiary whose results are included in the world group accounts made an unspecified profit in the fourth quarter of last year amc s large losses in caused principally by the international tin crisis were the reason behind the world group losses that year reuter 
