KARACHI, Feb 15: The Pakistan State Oil’s board of management has declared a cash dividend of Rs6 per share to its shareholders for the first half of financial year 2007-08 ended Dec 31, 2007.

The announcement came following the board’s review of the first half of FY07-08 performance of the country’s largest oil marketing entity. The chairman of the board, Sardar M. Yasin Malik, presided over the meeting.

The company sold over 6.2 million tons of POL products, showing a 13 per cent growth and translating into an all-time high sales turnover of Rs248 billion, an increase of 25 per cent over prior year, says a press release.

The all-time high profit-before-tax of Rs8.2 billion and profit- after-tax of Rs5.5 billion was achieved owing to 13 per cent higher sales volume as well as due to inventory gains during the period.

The PSO has approximately 80 per cent of the country’s storage capacity and has recorded gain or loss on its stock depending upon international oil price movement. Last year, the company had an inventory loss during the same period.

During the first half of 2007-08, international crude oil prices averaged over $78/bbl as against $61/bbl in first half of 2006-2007.

The trend of increase in crude prices witnessed in the first quarter of 2007-2008 continued during the second quarter, with Opec basket price peaking at $92/bbl during the first half as compared to $73/bbl during the same period last year.

Throughout the first half, the company continued to face liquidity problems due to ever-increasing receivables from the government resulting in galloping financial cost.

Despite the rising international prices, government continued to provide the subsidy in diesel, which touched its highest ever level at Rs17.14 per litre in December 2007.

At this level of subsidy, the sale price of diesel would have been Rs54.87 per litre as compared to current price of Rs37.73 in the market.

The subsidy accumulation on account of Price Differential Claims (PDC) reached a level of Rs26 billion at the end of November.