In a bid to boost revenue and profitability for shareholders, the Managing Director and Chief Executive of Forte Oil, Akin Akinfemiwa, said Forte Oil would be exploring partnerships and joint ventures for local refining of petroleum products.

Addressing stockbrokers and investors at the “Facts Behind the Figures,” on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in Lagos at the weekend, Akinfemiwa said: “We are aggressively pursuing mergers and acquisition (M&A) opportunities along the energy value chain.”

He also said that the company will improve its operating margins by growing the downstream business, deepen focus on high margin products like lubricants, fully exploit LPG business, optimise operation of Geregu power plant asset and achieve optimal structures for debt.

He also added that the company with interests in fuel distribution and operates the Geregu Power plant, plans to diversify into the upstream sector through profitable acquisition of upstream assets, harness partnerships with convenience stores, financial institutions and telecommunications firms to increase footfall to retail outlets and improve asset utilisation and introducing new product offerings like solar energy solutions and other alternative energy solutions.

While the federal government is seeking to refurbish its decrepit refineries, the country is still dependent on exporting crude oil for imports of refined products.

It has also been seeking new investments to reduce reliance on imported oil products that consume a large portion of Nigeria’s scarce foreign currency reserves, especially with oil prices low.

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Speaking on the company’s financial performance in the first half of the year, the CEO said, revenue dipped by 22 per cent from N84.4 billion in H1, 2016 to N65.6 billion as a result of markets inability to import petroleum products due to paucity of forex and unfavourable landing price of PMS as stipulated in the PPPRA template.

“EBIT incresed by 11 per cent to N7.6 billion in H1, 2017 largely due to dividend received from FUS, APDL and freight income; and also increased capacity utilisation and energy sent to national grid from the Geregu Plants and 56 per cent energy tariffs by NERC.

“Profit after tax increased by 84 per cent to N4.1 billion as a result of increase in finance and tax expenses,” he said.

Speaking also, the chief executive officer of NSE, Oscar Onyema stated that Forte Oil remains a dominant player in the downstream and oil and gas sector of the economy.

Onyema commended the company for ensuring year to year improvement in its financial performance, its consistency early filer standards at the NSE and for its resilience in maintaining full operation in spite of power business condition currently faced by the sector.