April 30 (Reuters) - German chemicals maker Covestro on Tuesday beat first-quarter core profit expectations, citing reductions in raw materials and energy costs that helped partially offset a decline in sales prices.

Covestro's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization fell 4.5% to 273 million euros ($292 million) in the January-March period, but beat analysts' average estimate of 237 million euros in a company-provided poll.

"Our goal for the rest of the year is to further increase production, sales volumes and margins without losing sight of our costs," CEO Markus Steilemann said.

The group, whose main products include foam chemicals used in mattresses, car seats and insulation for buildings, said it was able to increase volumes by 11% in the quarter, driven by higher demand and improved internal availability.

Chemical companies have been plagued by destocking for the past few quarters, but this trend is slowly coming to an end as companies are seeing demand levels pick up across the U.S., Europe and China.

Covestro's quarterly sales came in at 3.51 billion euros, down 6.2% year-on-year, missing the consensus figure of 3.58 billion euros.

The company expects second-quarter EBITDA to come in between 270 million and 370 million euros, and confirmed its full-year outlook of an EBITDA between 1 billion and 1.6 billion euros.

($1 = 0.9343 euros) (Reporting by Bartosz Dabrowski in Gdansk; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)