₦8.02bn pre-tax profit: TotalEnergies Nigeria swings back from an ₦11.92bn loss as finance costs fall 40%

TotalEnergies Marketing Nigeria made ₦8.02bn before tax in the 9 months to September. A year ago the same stretch ended in an ₦11.92bn loss. That's a ₦19.94bn swing for a fuel marketer whose margin on each litre is thin to begin with.

Revenue rose 12.65% to ₦661.92bn, from ₦587.59bn. Cost of sales grew a little slower, up 11.80% to ₦583.39bn, so gross profit climbed 19.42% to ₦78.52bn. Put another way, the company kept about ₦11.86 of every ₦100 it sold, up from ₦11.19 last year (STATART calculation).

Cheaper money did most of the work

The bigger change sat below the gross line. Finance costs fell to ₦12.30bn from ₦20.55bn, a 40.1% cut (STATART calculation), and net finance costs dropped to ₦11.15bn from ₦17.57bn. That ₦8.25bn saving on interest is larger than the whole pre-tax profit.

Interest still bites, though. Finance costs are 1.53x pre-tax profit, and the pre-tax margin is just 1.21% of revenue (STATART calculations). A fuel retailer running forecourts from Ikeja to Port Harcourt doesn't have much room on those numbers if borrowing costs rise again.

Profit after tax came in at ₦5.84bn against a ₦14.10bn loss, and earnings per share turned to ₦17.21 from a loss of ₦41.54.

Q3 was the slow quarter

Here's the catch. Q3 revenue jumped 33.1% to ₦217.92bn from ₦163.69bn (STATART calculation), yet Q3 pre-tax profit was only ₦1.31bn. That's 16.3% of the 9-month total, which means the first half carried ₦6.71bn of it (STATART calculations).

Margins explain part of it. Q3 gross profit was ₦22.02bn, about 10.1% of revenue, below the 10.6% of Q3 2025 (STATART calculation). Sales grew, but each ₦100 of them earned a little less.

The balance sheet looks steadier. Cash rose to ₦56.06bn from ₦44.78bn at the end of December, borrowings eased to ₦81.76bn from ₦84.67bn, and total assets reached ₦426.31bn. Shareholders' equity is ₦53.38bn, up from ₦47.54bn. Headcount slipped to 403 from 411.

For station dealers, LPG distributors and lubricant buyers who deal with TotalEnergies, a profitable supplier with more cash is good news. The results are unaudited.

TotalEnergies has turned the corner on lower interest, not on fatter fuel margins, and Q3's ₦1.31bn shows how fragile that is. The full-year numbers will tell whether Q4 sales can lift the margin back above 11%, or whether the recovery stalls at the pump.