Aug 21 (Reuters) - Australia's Ampol on Monday posted a 26% drop in its half-year profit, as earnings from its primary refining business fell reflecting weaker margins at its Lytton refinery in Brisbane and softer pricing of its products.

The fuel retailer also cut its interim dividend to 95 Australian cents per share, down from last year's 120 Australian cents per share.

Ampol logged an earnings before interest and tax of A$100.3 million for the half-year on a replacement-cost basis from its operations at Lytton reflecting the lower second-quarter refiner margin.

The Lytton margin was affected due to weak Singapore product cracks in the months of April and May coupled with the impact of the

cracking unit outage

, the company said.

The poor performance from the dominant refining operations were partly offset by higher sales volumes and contribution from Z Energy.

The country's biggest fuel supplier said net profit after tax from continuing operations came in at A$329.6 million ($210.88 million) on a replacement-cost basis for the six months ended June 30, compared with A$444.7 million a year earlier.

The Sydney-based firm, which completed the acquisition of Z Energy in May last year, benefited from the full contribution of the New Zealand-based fuel distributor despite extreme weather events experienced in the first quarter.

Z Energy's earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) for the first half was A$122.8 million, helped by an uptick in sales volumes.

"I am pleased with the progress we have made integrating Z Energy, with the management team having already delivered the expected benefits and synergies," said CEO and managing director, Matt Halliday. ($1 = 1.5630 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Rishav Chatterjee and Upasana Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Diane Craft)