Forte Oil Suffers 50.1% Drop In Full Year Profit

The harsh economic realities is beginning to take its tolls on the country’s indigenous oil and gas marketing company, as Forte Oil Plc on Tuesday reported a decline in its full year profit after tax for the period ended December 31, 2016.

Specifically, the company results showed 50.1 percent drop from N5.794 billion that was reported in 2015 to N2.890 billion in 2016. Profit before tax was also down by 23.8 percent, from N7.012 billion in 2015 to N5.340 billion in 2016.

Forte Oil which maintained its lead as one of the companies that usually submits its full year earnings ahead of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) regulatory 90 days deadline, was able to grow its revenue by 19.2 percent from N124.617 billion in 2015 to N148.605 billion in 2016. However, the board did not proposed any dividend nor bonuses.

It would be recalled that in November last year, the company succeeded in raising N9 billion from the capital market to support its operation and drive its expansion strategy.  The capital-raising in bonds was a five-year fixed rate issue and the first series of its proposed N50 billion bond issuance programme.

The oil firm had said then that the funds raised would be deployed to refinance existing short-term commercial bank loan obligations and its retail outlet expansion.

The Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Akin Akinfemiwa, was quoted to have said, “The raising of this initial capital which has been fully underwritten shows the confidence the investing public has in Forte Oil as an investment of choice.

“This bond programme being the first in the downstream sector, is a testament to Forte Oil’s position within the downstream sector and allows the company to actualise the vision of the board to continue to provide value to its shareholders regardless of the economic climate.” The bond was listed on the NSE and FMDQ OTC Exchange until maturity date in 2021.