Hibiscus Petroleum issued a cautionary note that its financial performance was impacted by external macroeconomic factors.
PETALING JAYA: Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd
is confident of building on its operational track record developed in Malaysia and the United Kingdom to deliver an optimal performance in a strong oil price environment.
It added the recent issuance of the production consent for the Teal West Development for its subsidiary, Anasuria Hibiscus UK Ltd, which the group sees as a positive tangible signal of the UK government prioritising energy security in its economic policy, will positively impact its UK business activities over the coming months.
The upstream oil company, however, has issued a cautionary note that its financial performance has been impacted by external macroeconomic factors such as Brent oil prices and as such, careful management of costs to maintain a low operational expenditure and the successful execution of production enhancement projects are essential towards maintaining a healthy level of earnings.
Hibiscus posted a 43% year-on-year (y-o-y) drop in net profit to RM123.3mil for the fourth quarter ended June 30, 2023 (4Q23) while revenue also fell 42% y-o-y to RM503.6mil.
For the full year, earnings declined by 38.7% y-o-y to RM400.5mil although turnover grew by 38.2% y-o-y to RM2.34bil.
The group attributed several factors that affected its respective segments in various localities for the earnings squeeze, including the payment and penalty of the Sabah state sales tax (SbST) and the increased Energy Profits Levy imposed by the UK government, among others.
Compared to the preceding quarter ended March 31, Hibiscus’ net profit was up 72.4% from RM71.5mil despite revenue remaining rather flattish, recording a 3.8% slip from RM523.3mil, with the group saying factors such as the reversal of an overprovision of the penalties related to the SbST and foreign-exchange gains as a result of the strengthening of the US dollar against the ringgit played a part.
Hibiscus managing director Kenneth Pereira said FY23 marked the first full year of the Peninsula Hibiscus group’s assets contributing to the group’s financial and operational performance.
“With those assets on board, we’ve crossed the RM2bil mark in revenue for the first time. We are pleased to achieve this milestone and look forward to increasing our output by between 6% and 10% in FY24, as evidenced by our larger production volume guidance of 7.5 to 7.8 million barrels of oil equivalent,” he said in a statement.
The firm declared a third interim dividend of 0.5 sen per share, going ex on Sept 21, and is payable on Oct 20, which also brings the group’s year-to-date payout to two sen per share.
