ISLAMABAD, Jan 12: The Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) has posted a pre-tax profit of Rs23.23 billion during financial year 2000-01 showing an increase of 79 per cent over the last year.
The statement of accounts of the company was approved by its board of directors early this month. The company also earned an after-tax profit of Rs16.5 billion while the earning per share has increase by 53 per cent of the share value.
The earning on a Rs10 share increased to Rs15.30 per share as compared to Rs9.77 the previous year. The company paid to the government Rs3.65 billion in taxation and Rs3.99 billion as royalty showing an increase of 49 per cent and 14 per cent respectively over the previous year.
The better financial performance was attributed to increase in petroleum prices, strict financial discipline, substantial increase in production and decrease in administrative and other expenses.
Critics however, suggest that company has not been able to secure sufficient exploration blocks in the last two years which would result in lower production and earnings in the next few years.
The company however defend this with the argument that it has adopted a calculated exploration strategy and was not throwing its hard earned money for dry wells.
The company invested a total of Rs5.6 billion for exploration and development of oil and gas and other petroleum products during the financial year 2000-01.
The OGDCL has also allocated Rs1.7 billion for upgradation of equipment which is approximately 200 per cent more than the amount allocated for the same period last year. This, the board of directors were informed, would give further impetus to the exploration and production activities during the current year.
The company has also earmarked Rs970 million for the employees retirement benefit fund while Rs1.222 billion were allocated against worker’s profit participation fund which was around Rs541 million more than allocated for the same purpose last year.
The company is expected to make its financial results public some time next week.