Colombian fuel distributor Terpel postponing investments

Colombian fuel distribution group Terpel is restricting capex to a minimum to help with cash flow, according to company president Sylvia Escovar.

During Terpel’s first quarter results presentation on Tuesday, Escovar added that some investments will be postponed until after the economy shows signs of recovery.

Group capex in the first three months of 2020 totaled 61.7bn pesos (US$16mn), of which 64% went to Colombia, 14.8% to Panama, 11.2% to Peru, 9.8% to Ecuador and 0.1% to Dominican Republic.

Around half of the investment went to service station expansion and modernization, and the balance to increase storage capacity at lubricants plants in Cartagena (Colombia) and Callao (Peru), among other areas.

Terpel attributed a 3.1% dip in 1Q20 sales volume to 675Mg (million gallons) to COVID-19, with sales volume down in Colombia (2.5% to 502Mg), Ecuador (3.8% to 76.8Mg), Panama (7.4% to 65.7Mg) and the Dominican Republic (4.3% to 14.3Mg), and up 0.7% in Peru to 16.5Mg.

Source: Colombian government's SICOM fuel information system

When asked about recovery of gasoline and diesel demand in Colombia, management said that studies undertaken by Terpel suggest that this sector will be one of the fastest to recover, and that there has been an important uptick of volumes in the last few weeks.

Chevron said recently that its Colombia liquid fuel sales had fallen by an average of 65% as a result of the national coronavirus lockdown.

Source: Colombia government's SICOM fuel information system (GMC = gasoline)

Regarding the impact of Avianca’s bankruptcy, Terpel said the Colombian flagship airline’s accounts receivable total US$4.8mn or 30% of Terpel’s aviation portfolio and 11% of the group’s consolidated portfolio.

Terpel’s Q1 net earnings fell 96.8% to 1.86bn pesos while revenues rose 4.3% to 5.32tn pesos. The earnings release is available here (in Spanish).

Photo credit: Terpel