Padma Oil, the petroleum product seller, continues to suffer for the pandemic, with its profit sliding 14.5 per cent between the months of July and September.
The listed state-owned enterprise logged in a profit of Tk 6.3 crore for the first quarter of its 2020-21 financial year, according to adisclosure on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) website.
This follows from the 4.4 per cent drop in profit for the 2019-20 financial year that ended on June 30.
“This was because of the drop in petroleum trading for the countrywide shutdown,” Md. Masudur Rahman, managing director of Padma Oil told Dhaka Tribune.
Its board of directors recommended a 125 per cent cash dividend for the year, down from 130 per cent in the previous year.
The Padma Oil Company is a subsidiary of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), a statutory organisation of the government under the ministry of power, energy, and mineral resources.
Each share of the company, listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange since1976, closed at Tk 204 on Sunday, down 1.5 per cent from the previous session.
Recently, Padma Oil Company signed agreements with three liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) suppliers – Energypac Power, Beximco LPG Unit-1 and Omera Gas One - as part of its business expansion.
Under the agreements, the companies will sell their LPG by establishing LPG (Autogas) refuelling station and LPG conversion workshop parallel to the sale of petroleum oil through the company’s registered filling stations across the country.