The tax credit to Oando Plc rose by 303 per cent to ₦181.85 billion in the third quarter of the year amid the company’s poor financial performance over the past years.
A review of its financial statement for the nine months ended September 30, 2025, released on Thursday, October 30, revealed that the tax credit to Oando tripled compared to the ₦45.16 billion tax credit reported in the same period in 2024.
The indigenous oil company’s current income tax liabilities stood at ₦496.01 billion as of September 2025.
Pinnacle Daily reports that companies and individuals doing business and earning income pay a certain percentage of their returns or profits to the governments.
According to experts, a tax credit is a sum that can be offset against a tax liability; it is a provision that reduces a taxpayer’s final tax bill.
READ ALSO: PETROAN Seeks Level Playing Field in Oil Market, Warns Against Monopoly
The company has, since 2020, steeped into debt and has not fully been able to crawl out of the obligation, as total liabilities continue to exceed total assets, depicting its financial health.
In September 2023, the company’s independent auditor, BDO Professional Services Chartered Accountants, noted the company’s indebtedness.
“As stated in the notes, these conditions, together with other matters, indicate the existence of a material uncertainty that may cast significant doubt on the company’s and the group’s ability to continue as a going concern and, therefore, may be unable to realise its assets and settle its liabilities in the ordinary course of business,” the auditor specifically stated.
A further look at the interim results shows that Oando remains in a negative financial position with a negative equity of ₦209.38 billion, as total liabilities of ₦6.98 trillion exceed its total assets of ₦6.77 trillion.
A negative financial position is a situation where total liabilities exceed total assets, resulting in negative equity.
The Oando Group, made up of Oando Trading, Oando Energy Resources, and Oando Clean Energy, had increasingly sunk into debt in the past five years, raising concerns over its negative financial position.
READ ALSO: First Bank Redeems $350m Eurobond to Boost Financial Position
The indigenous oil company’s financial performance has also been of concern over the past five years.
Owing to the tax credit, Oando’s profit after tax rose from ₦76.3 billion in September 2024 to ₦201.31 billion in September 2025, while its profit before tax declined from ₦31,134,545 to ₦19,458,357, respectively.
Commenting on the results, the Group Chief Executive at Oando, Wale Tinubu, said, “In the first nine months of 2025, we consolidated the gains achieved following our acquisition of NAOC’s assets last year. Our assumption of operatorship has been transformational, granting us the agility to act decisively and execute with precision in driving production growth and operational efficiency.”
He stated that the company’s production uptime currently stands at 82 per cent, translating to a 59 per cent year-on-year increase in crude oil and gas production, which now averages 38,121 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), clear evidence of the beginning of the dawn of unlocking the tremendous value our reserves possess.
“During the period, we made meaningful progress in integrating operations and strengthening security and community relations, as well as resolving legacy issues inherited at the point of operatorship.
“Most notably, we achieved a partial recovery of substantial receivables that had remained outstanding for several years and made significant headway in renegotiating long-standing legal matters that had previously been fully provisioned for. These milestones underscore the depth of our leadership and our unwavering commitment to unlocking value,” Tinubu said.
He hinted that across the group’s trading business, refined product volumes remained under pressure, largely due to the well-deserved and expected success of the Dangote refinery in meeting Nigeria’s import needs.
“Consequently, our focus had shifted to expanding global crude exports and leveraging structured pre-export transactions, an area in which we have continued to record robust success.
READ ALSO: Nigeria’s Capital Gains Tax Overhaul: A Turning Point or Investor Deterrent?
“In addition, we also executed the first tranche of our share distribution programme, delivering a 5.33% dividend yield, with the second tranche scheduled for early next year. This is yet another tangible demonstration of our focus on creating and returning value to our shareholders.
“As we enter the final quarter of 2025, we remain focused on further strengthening our balance sheet, accelerating production growth, expanding our trading footprint, optimising our cash flows, and sustaining long-term value creation,” he added.
Alex is a business journalist cum data enthusiast with the Pinnacle Daily. He can be reached via ealex@thepinnacleng.com, @ehime_alex on X
