Corporate results: OGDC’s profit slides 15%

Announced a cash dividend of Rs1.75 per share

KARACHI:

The fallout of the slump in oil price continued into the January-March 2015 quarter as Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDC) reported a 15% decline in net profit on Thursday.

Pakistan’s largest petroleum exploration and production firm saw its third-quarter profit slide to Rs20.2 billion from Rs23.7 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal year.

But its board of directors still approved a cash dividend of Rs1.75 per share, taking the total dividend announced so far in the year to Rs6.25.

The price of oil and gas extracted from wells in Pakistan is benchmarked to the international crude oil market.

Before last year’s slump, crude had been on a sustained rise, something which also bloated earnings of petroleum producers.

OGDC’s earnings could have been worse in the quarter if not for a 153% increase in the Rs5.3 billion other income

Published in The Express Tribune, April 24^th,  2015.

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