ENGEN PROFITS DECLINE

Engen Botswana is optimistic about the business in Botswana and aims to grow the brand in the market as the profits declined significantly by 45 percent during the year ended December 2023.

The company indicated that its commercial business was affected by the loss of government accounts to citizen owned companies. Profit for the year decreased to P113.4 million from P266.1 in 2022. Retail volumes decreased marginally by 1.6 percent while commercial volumes decreased by 32.3 percent.

Commenting in the published results, Engen Botswana Acting Managing Director, Brian Sameke said during the year the group continued to diversify its commercial sales channel in order to strengthen its volume performance.

“This channel continued to be highly price competitive and the group had to continuously manage the effects of strong price competition in order to remain competitive in the market.”

He highlighted that distributors of lubricants continued to play a pivotal role in the good financial performance of the commercial channel. “We believe that high levels of operational efficiency and the responsible conduct of our business in line with our values and cultural beliefs will stand us in good stead to surmount the challenges that we may encounter in the future. This will assist to deliver strong results for our shareholders and continue to make a meaningful contribution to the economic prosperity of Botswana.”

The group indicated that its retail channel continued to remain the cornerstone of the business in Botswana. “This channel continued to deliver strong results generated from fuel and non-fuel revenues. One new, full offer, retail outlet was streamed during the year with two others which are in the network plan for streaming in early 2024.”

During 2023, crude oil prices decreased steadily due to increased supply globally. The steady decrease in crude oil prices resulted in significant inventory revaluation losses throughout the year. The company stated that fuel supply of most of the products into Botswana from its supply sources was reasonably stable during the course of the year and the company was able to supply its customers without any stock outs.