Conoil’s half-year profit rises by 196%

Petroleum downstream player, Conoil Plc, has recorded a growth of 196 per cent in its 2016 half-year profit.

The unaudited half-year report of the oil marketing company filed with the Nigerian Stock Exchange on Friday showed that its profit before tax rose from N528.5m in 2015 to N1.566bn in 2016 representing 196 per cent increase.

Another major highpoint of the six-month scorecard was the 190 per cent increase in profit after tax from N359.4m in 2015 to N1.04bn in 2016, while earnings per share also rose from 52 kobo to 150 kobo, representing an increase of 190 per cent.

The company’s results were said to have prevailed against the volatility in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry and the nation’s receding economy. Going by the performance, it is expected that higher dividend payout for its shareholders at the end of the current financial year was realistic.

The company had declared N2.08bn last year, translating into the N3 dividend payout on every 50kobo ordinary share for the 2015 financial year, compared to N1 paid in 2014.

The firm said the capital market had been reacting positively to the company’s laudable 2015 financial performance, with a recent surge in the demand for its stock by investors. So far, Conoil investors have reaped a return of 34 per cent in the last two weeks, as the equity appreciated in value, it noted.

The company said, “The result shows that we out-performed our previous year in the top-line and should exceed our bottom-line performance at the current run-rate.

“The impressive performance was linked to the company’s innovative means of manufacturing and distributing products, huge financial investments in developing high-performance products and in the provision of services that matched and surpassed international standards.”

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