* Net profit up to 40 million euros, vs forecast 36 million
* Refining margins up sharply at $2.3 per barrel
* Capex up 25 percent
(Adds detail on refining, investment, output)
LISBON, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Portuguese fuel and oil company Galp Energia posted adjusted fourth-quarter net profit at the top end of expectations, driven by higher crude output and prices, while refining margins improved.
Galp said on Friday profit, adjusted to reflect changes in the company's stocks of crude, rose 16 percent to 40 million euros ($54 million).
Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose 18 percent to 177 million euros. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast an adjusted net profit of 36 million euros and EBITDA of 164 million.
Galp's refining margin rose to $2.3 per barrel in the fourth quarter from $0.9 a year earlier.
Its average net entitlement share of oil production in the projects where it has stakes rose 17 percent to 14,300 barrels per day.
While refined oil product sales dropped 5 percent due to an adverse economic environment in Portugal and Spain that it expected to continue weighing on operating results this quarter, natural gas sales rose 12 percent.
That allowed for the rise in profit even as Galp's capital expenditure in new oil projects overseas and in refinery upgrades at home rose 25 percent in the fourth quarter and 69 percent for all of 2010. Investment totalled 369 million euros in the fourth quarter alone.
Galp has been investing heavily in projects such as Tupi off Brazil's coast and Tombua-Landana in Angola that helped the company, which is still largely a refiner, boost its oil output. (Reporting by Andrei Khalip; Editing by Dan Lalor) ($1 = 0.7343 euro)