Petróleos de Moçambique (Petromoc) owes around 6 billion meticais to the Tax Authority (AT) of Mozambique and other creditors. In addition to the debt, the company’s board of directors says that it is facing difficulties in operating.
According to O País, the Petromoc board assumes that the company’s accounts are in the red, but the board plans to reduce the debt to creditors in order to make it sustainable.
“We have a debt with the Tax Authority estimated at around four billion meticais. And we owe creditors another two billion meticais”, revealed Hélder Chabisse, Chairman of the Board of Directors (PCA) of Petromoc.7The company also reveals that the recent readjustment of fuel prices has only worsened the company’s financial situation.
Questioning the reactivation of a Petromoc refinery, closed in 1984, the manager talks about the need to increase demand. “Right now, the country consumes 1.4 million cubic metres, which is not a sufficient volume to make a refinery profitable. We will have to look to neighbouring countries in order to make the refinery profitable. It was necessary to make the cost and benefit ratio,” the Petromoc PCA added.
“Since August of last year until today, the company has had cash flow difficulties, because we are again in a regulatory deficit situation and, since then until here, the price of fuel has been adjusted, but not to the level of the international market price,” Petromoc CFO Mário Sitoe said.
Even with these difficulties and challenges, Petromoc’s indicators point to improvements. Sales of goods and provision of services earned the institution more than 19 billion meticais compared to 16 billion in 2020.
“The positive results for 2020 and 2021 show that the net results are improving and that is our perspective, taking into account our business plan and our budget for this year and subsequent ones. Petromoc will be in a position to pay the dividend,” Chabisse assured.
The information was advanced yesterday, May 16, during the visit of the Planning and Budget Commission of the Portuguese Parliament to Pretromoc.
