Aggressively fueled by ‘robust sales’, the net income of Uy-led Phoenix Petroleum Philippines Inc. had climbed 9.0-percent to P132 million in the second quarter vis-à-vis a leaner income of P121.3 million earnings in the last quarter.
If compared to second quarter last year, the oil firm’s financial outcome in April to June this year was fundamentally a turnaround from the P5.0 million net loss posted in the same period last year.
The listed company emphasized that it logged “all-time high quarterly volume” within the second quarter period; and that had driven up by 73-percent its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) to P1.07 billion.
Phoenix Petroleum President Henry Albert Fadullon said “our second quarter performance shows that our domestic growth is accelerating and we are solidifying our market positions as evidenced by the recent market share expansion.”
Amid rising sales performance, Phoenix Petroleum pointed out that it is still exercising exceptional prudence in its operating expenses (OPEX) as well as in injection of fresh capital expenditures (capex) to projects.
On the company’s sales volume, it noted that this expanded 32-percent from the prior quarter; and that has been mainly attributed to domestic businesses already picking up pace on their recoveries in recent months.
Phoenix Petroleum chiefly cited domestic volume climbing by 27-percent- and that was propelled by brisk sales to commercial as well as business-to-business (B2B) segments, with it stressing that “select industries, such as manufacturing and trading drive the momentum.”
The liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) business sub-segment of the oil firm, also reported escalation on its sales, primarily for the strong demand of canisters; and the return-to-growth of the LPG industrial sector.
The company added that its overseas volume, especially its market in Vietnam, similarly posted 37-percent quarter-on-quarter jump in sales.
Fadullon stressed “despite the challenges, we are able to continue to expand our network with a capex-light model, win new B2B accounts and keep our costs in line.”
Moving forward, the company indicated that recovery in retail will likely be slowed down again by the feared surge in Covid-19 infections, especially with the government’s move to re-enforce lockdown in Metro Manila and other cities as well as towns with high infection rates, especially those of the more transmissible Delta variant.
Despite this fresh round of business drawback, Fadullon asserted the company is still “confident” on a longer term demand recovery pathway for the deregulated downstream oil sector.
With that, he stated that the oil firm “will continue to implement high impact activities to further strengthen the company’s fundamentals” – including steps on financial deleveraging.