On Tuesday, Pakistan’s largest oil marketing company,
Pakistan State Oil Company Limited (PSO) released its half yearly results and
also announce approval of 50 percent dividend by the Board of Directors. The
results were above market expectations.
PSO has posted profit after tax of Rs6.7 billion (EPS:
Rs24.76) for the half year ended 31st December 2015 as compared to
profit of Rs4.2 billion (EPS: Rs15.76) for the corresponding period of 2014, an
increase of 57 percent.
The major takeaways are: 1) reduction in financial cost to
Rs3.6 billion from Rs5.9 billion, may be because of improved cash flow and
declining interest rates, 2) increase in share of profit of associates rising
to Rs388 million from Rs23 million and 3) other income also went down to Rs5.3
billion from Rs6.7 billion.
Net sales of the company declined by over 30 percent to
Rs353.9 billion from Rs508.2 billion. This erosion can be attributed to the
declining trend in international prices of crude oil, also affecting prices of
POL products being dispensed by PSO.
