Fesco eyes Foska Oval for next service station
Future Energy Source Company Limited, which trades as Fesco, has plans to develop a new service station on Spanish Town Road in Kingston.
Last month the petroleum products supplier received conditional approvals from the National Environment and Planning Authority (NEPA) to construct a service station on Lot 459 Spanish Town Road. The approval process is still ongoing according to just-released authority decisions on the NEPA’s website.
Company CEO Jeremy Barnes would not comment on the plans for development, but documents pulled from Titles Office of Jamaica by the Jamaica Observer places the proposed development on or around Foska Oval in Pennwood Kingston 11, a popular sporting complex for residents living in nearby communities.
The property, which neighbours Spectrum Systems Limited, measures roughly 6,200 square feet and sits at the corner of Henley Road and White Carie Lane.
Fesco has been aggressively building out its network of service stations over the past two years. Today, the company operates 20 service stations, the most recent additions being May Pen, Clarendon, and Kitson Town in St Catherine. It’s also close to completing the Port Maria, St Mary, service station.
The growth of Fesco’s service station network comes amid work by the company to make inroads into the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) market. Both ventures are expected to be primary drivers for the company which continues to record growth in both revenues and earnings despite falloffs in price of fuel over the recent quarters and its hefty spend on capital expenditure projects.
For the third quarter ending September 2023, Fesco made a profit of $158 million, up 22 per cent year on year. Revenues also grew 3.3 per cent to $7.2 billion. Fesco has maintained its growth momentum despite racking up over $204 million in operating and administrative expenses during the quarter, 200 per cent more than that of the previous quarter.
“In summary, staff costs, bank charges, advertising, and asset-based expenses including but not limited to depreciation, insurance, and security continue to be our main expense items.
“Our operations continue to be efficient represented by our total operating expenses being approximately 53.72 per cent of gross profits and, more importantly for this stage of our LPG business development, the Company’s total operating expenses excluding depreciation is just 40.1 per cent of gross profits,” the company said in the preamble to the Q3 results.
Fesco added that the company’s expense profile is changing, and as such will reflect its expanded and evolving scope of operations.
“The company’s expenditure and revenue targets are in line with its internal forecast and mix of established and early stage business expenses,” it said.