Domestic Ethiopian Petroleum vendor Yetebaberut Beherawi Petroleum announced profits lower than what it had earned in the previous fiscal year.

The petroleum company reported 5.5 million birr in net profit for the last financial year at the annual General Assembly of Shareholders held at the Hilton Hotel. The profit it reported was 12.5 million birr lower than the 18.7 million birr it had declared for the year before.

YBP retailed 262.1 million liters of petrol and 1.72 million liters of oil from which it collected 4.5 billion birr. The total sales of the company showed an increase of 31 percent (1.5 billion birr) from its performance in the previous year.

The company however only earned a gross income of 32.8 million birr from these sales which showed a decrease from the previous year. The profit earned from the sale of petrol made up 39.5 percent of the total profit while revenue earned from the sale of lubricant oil made up 60.5 percent.

The company’s profit had lowered despite the fact that it had sold more products because of the enforced profit margin for the sector said Tsega Asamere, Chairman of Board of Directors of YBP.

The level of investment in the sector and the returns are incompatible according to Tsega who recommends that the Ethiopian government review the profit margin set for the sector with the view to increasing it.

Source: Capital