By Mike Puia
THE South Pacific Oil (SPO) recorded a $132.9 million profit at the end of last year, a $16.8 million increase from 2016.
Chairman of the SPO board, Gideon Zoloveke, revealed this when announcing SPO’s historic dividend payout of $73 million to the Solomon Islands National Provident Fund (SINPF) last Friday.
Zoloveke said the $132.9 million profit represents a 14.5 percent profit growth when compared to their 2016 operation.
Over the last 11 years, SPO paid a total dividend of $354.1 million to SINPF. The payment done last Friday increased the total dividend paid to SINPF to $427.1 million.
Zoloveke said SPO has been having a good year last year in terms of profit and volume growth.
He said operation costs have gone down and they have recorded a $3.4 million last year for interest rates and exchange rates gains.
In terms of volume, Zoloveke said, SPO sold over 105.8 million litres of fuel, an increase of 20 percent to 2016 volume.
He said when one considered the economic climate of the country in 2017; “this result is outstanding”.
SPO project further growth this year.
