Omodele Adigun
In spite of the harsh operating environment, Oando Plc has announced a profit of N4.6 billion in the first quarter of the year.
According to the company, the figure represents 11 per cent increase on the N4.2 billion recorded during the first quarter of 2018. An in-depth analysis of the company’s financials shows that its turnover grew by 12 per cent to N168 billion, from N150.6 billion in Q1 2018; profit-after-tax was up by 11 per cent to N4.6 billion, compared with last year’s N4.2 billion. The Oando Group was able to reduce its total borrowings by five per cent to N200.9 billion from to N210.9 billion in the previous year, while its long term borrowing decreased by one per cent to N75.8 billion as against N76.8 billion recorded in 2018. These figures reflect an increase in production by 11 per cent at 43,745boe/day compared to 39,556boe/day in its upstream subsidiary same period last year.
The company’s upstream activities reveal that oil production increased by 13 per cent from 14,823barrels per day (bpd) in the first quarter of 2018 to 16,815bpd during the same in 2019, while natural gas production increased by 18 per cent from 124,910mcf/day in Q1 2018 to 147,163mcf/day in Q1 2019. This is in line with its Group CEO’s promise to aggressively grow production organically and inorganically in its upstream business.
And despite its partial divestment from its marketing subsidiary, the company continues to increase its market share in the downstream sector through its trading business, Oando Trading, which recorded an 11 per cent increase year-on-year, driven by a strong performance in its crude oil trading division and a three per cent increase in turnover to $312 million, from $301 million.
Commenting on the company’s performance, the Group CEO, Adewale Tinubu, said: “Our results reflect the progress made over the last few quarters and provides an indication of our expectation for the year. Now that our debt profile is down by 78 per cent from $2.5billion as of December 2014 to $558million, and our de-leverage program is 90 per cent complete with most of our non-core operations divested for good value, we can now focus on steady growth in our upstream entity.’’