Japaul Gold and Ventures Assures Shareholders of Bright Prospects

By Goddy Egene

The Chairman of Japaul Gold and Ventures Plc, Mr. Paul Jegede, has assured shareholders of bright prospects, following its new business focus from oil and gas servicing sector to natural resource management.

The company has diversified from oil and maritime services business to the exploration, mining, processing and export of minerals, such as gold, lithium among others. This made the company to change its name from Japaul Oil & Maritime Services Plc to Japaul Gold and Ventures Plc.

Addressing the shareholders at the annual general meeting (AGM) in Lagos, Jegede said with the constant change and decline in the oil and gas climate, Japaul has remained committed and proactive in its efforts to bring value to its shareholders which necessitated the diversification from the company’s core business as the company believes these natural resources are a viable substitute for oil.

According to him, the company has acquired mining and exploration licenses through buy-overs for the exploration, mining and exportation of gold, lithium, copper, tin, lead and zinc across seven states in Nigeria where strategic minerals have been discovered in commercial quantities and reserves.

“Since the diversification, Japaul’s finances have yielded positive financial outlook for the company and its shareholders. For instance, from our 2018 financial year, N7.4 billion turned to N40 billion profit in 2019.The shareholders’ fund turned from N35billion negative to N4.6billion in 2019 financial year end while earning per share turned from N105 negative in 2018 to positive N653 in 2019,” Jegede said.

Also speaking, the Group Managing Director, Japaul Mr. Akin Oladapo, said they had had the foresight that the situation of the oil and gas sector would not improve for a long time.

“We started training ourselves in mining related businesses and the rest is history. We have bought mining and exploration licenses for Gold, Lithium, Lead, Copper, Tin, Zinc among others, which our company will be working with.

We already have Canadian expatriates that have been doing explorations works for us, Matrix Geotech in Toronto, Canada. Our strategy is to start mining gold as from 2021 to 2022 while exploration works continue on other licenses that we have,” Oladapo said.

He stressed that with this new business focus, Japaul is already positioned strategically for the supply of the oil of tomorrow to international markets which have unlimited demand as the world makes a more mineral-intensive transition from fossil fuel to low-emission energy.

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