QCOSTARICA – No surprise here. The Refinadora Costarricense de Petróleo (Recope) – state refinery – recorded a financial loss of ¢13 billion colones in the first nine months of 2015, according to its interim financial statements.
The state company blames the loss to low international oil prices (lowering the selling price of fuels), coupled with lower domestic consumption of petroleum products.
That is the explanation by Sara Salazar, president of Recope and Edgar Gutierez, Recope’s chief financial officer.
However, Gutierez emphasized that the company is in the process of completing its financial statement for 2015 and despite the preliminary figure, the year would close with only a loss of ¢6 billion colones.
The CFO explained lower fuel prices and sales led to less revenue, yet the company’s operating costs were not reduced, with the major expense being its payroll for 1,700 employees and severance payments, both linked to the collective agreement.
The payroll represents 56% of total expenditures.
According to the interim report, despite the reduced income, expenses rose 21% in the first nine months of 2015.
The statement also shows that lower demand for bunker fuel for thermal electric generation by the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) resulted in a drop of 5% in sales, in the first nine months of 2015, ICE buying 97.500 barrels less, with respect to the same period in 2014.
