The Qatar Fuel Company (Woqod) has reported a net profit (after excluding minority interest) of QR373mn as compared to QR540mn for the same period in 2016, with a decrease of QR167mn or 31%. Ahmed Saif al-Sulaiti, the chairman of the Board of Directors at Woqod, approved the financial statements for the period ending on 30 June 2017.
Announcing Woqod’s financial results, the chief executive officer Saad Rashid al-Muhannadi said the reason for the decrease in earnings was primarily due to the change in terms for fuel supplies to Woqod and its customers, and secondly to the increase in the National Pension Funds contributions as per the current legislation, as well as the decline in the value of investment in shares. Al-Muhannadi said Woqod would exert its best endeavours to improve the results in future.
He said four stations were opened in the first half of the year 2017, whereas eight stations are under construction and 14 are under their tendering and designing stage. In this respect, he also spoke about petrol stations expansion projects. He said two such projects were completed and three are pending completion. Al-Muhannadi also said that Woqod is currently coordinating with the Municipality for the allocation of 26 locations for the construction of petrol stations. With regard to FAHES centres, he said three centres will be opened in 2017, whereas another two centres will be opened in 2018.
Woqod’s retail activities include Sidra stores, car wash centres (manual and automatic), repair workshops, tyre and oil change and other services. Retail sales grew by more than 7% over the same period last year, a statement said.
LPG sales (refilling and new) during the period grew by 14%. The sale of Metallic cylinders declined to 1.3mn, whereas sale of SHAFAF cylinders (6kg and 12kg) more than doubled and exceeded 3.2mn cylinders as a result of the promotional campaign to replace metallic cylinders with SHAFAF cylinders. As for the bitumen sales, type 60/70 recorded an unprecedented growth of over 168%, and sales of type Polymer PMB increased by more than 14% over the same period last year. Bitumen sales are expected to increase significantly after the completion of the storage expansion project, according to the statement.
Woqod introduced the electronic payment system Woqode in January 2016. The system works through an electronic RFID chip tag fitted in the vehicle’s fuel tank. The number of tags installed during the first half of 2017 reached 20,525 tags, an increase of 12% over the half of 2016.
The total sales volume of petroleum products (diesel, gasoline and jet fuel) exceeded 4,760mn litres with an increase of 5% in the first half of 2017 as compared to the same period last year. Jet fuel accounted for 45% of the total sales volume followed by diesel (29%) and Gasoline (26%).
Al-Muhannadi thanked the chairman and members of the Board of Directors for their continued support and guidance to the company, the executive management, shareholders and partners. He emphasised the company’s strength and keenness to achieve greater success and progress by taking many measures that will contribute in reducing costs and raising the efficiency of workers and the searching for new sources of income.


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