By Dipo Olowookere
One of the players in the oil sector in the country, MRS Oil Nigeria Plc, has released its financial statements for the first half of this year.
In the company’s earnings released by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Thursday, the oil firm recorded a slight growth in its revenue for the period under review, posting N62.3 billion versus N62.5 billion in the same period of last year.
However, the cost of sales shot up by 1.9 percent to N59 billion against N57.9 billion in the first half of 2017, leading to a sharp drop in the gross profit achieved by MRS Oil in H1 2018, which was N3.3 billion in contrast to N4.6 billion in H1 2017.
In the statements checked by Business Post, the company raked N181.6 million from other income compared with N100.8 million 12 months ago, while the selling and distribution expenses raked N489.4 miliion versus N706.7 million.
In the first six months of 2018, the management of the firm made efforts to cut down its administrative expenses, reflecting with the N2.1 billion used for such compared with N2.7 billion expended exactly a year ago.
However, the operating profit posted by MRS Oil depreciated by 25.5 percent to N916.4 million in contrast to N1.2 billion recorded in H1 2017.
Business Post reports further that there was a 31.8 percent reduction in the profit before tax posted by the company, N773.7 million in H1 2018 against N1.1 billion recorded in H1 2017.
Also, the profit after tax went down to N505.6 million from N703.5 million, representing 28.1 percent cut.
An analysis of the balance sheet showed that value of the total assets of MRS Oil declined by 20 percent to N59.7 billion from N74.6 billion, while the total liabilities closed at N36.1 billion as at June 30, 2018 versus N51.8 billion as at June 30, 2017.
The shareholders’ fund rose by 3.3 percent to N23.6 billion from N22.9 billion, while the earnings per share (EPS) suffered a 28.2 percent drop to N1.99k from N2.77k.
Adedapo Adesanya