The outgoing Managing Director of Mobil Oil Ghana Limited, Mr. Olu Onakoya, has said that the company would invest $5 million to upgrade and open four of its sites in the country.

He said the objective of this investment is to bring world class food services into Mobil's key sites and create a new pleasurable experience in Mobil stations, making them destinations of choice for our customers.

The MD said this when he addressed the 27th annual general meeting of the company in Accra last week.

Despite the difficult supply situation in fuels, he said the company was able to grow volumes in retail segment by 5.3%, which is almost double the average industry growth of 2.7%.

"Our success was due to improved delivery efficiency from the rationalisation of our trucking fleet and stronger customer focus especially in our forecourts," he said.

According to him, in spite of the closure of three of their prime stations in Accra and Tema in the fourth quarter of the 2002 for significant upgrades and withdrawal from three minor segments, the company retained the leadership of the retail sector.

Dilating on the company's achievements, he noted that it maintained the position as the market leader in lubricants with volume growth of 4.4% over 2001 versus 4.2% for the industry.

"Our lubricants promotion program was an outstanding success as it rewarded our loyal customers and reinforced our unmatched brand position," he said.

Notwithstanding the strong volume of performance, he hinted that the extremely low unit margins for fuels and the impact of increases devaluation, interest rates and overall inflation on operating expenses combined to reduce the net profit after tax by 9% from ?13.7 billion in 2001 to ? 12.4 billion in last year.

A dividend of 2,550 per share before tax was approved by the shareholders, an increase of ?14 over the amount of ?2,536 paid last year.

Conducting safety risk assessment on all aspects of the company's business in 2002, he said it decided to withdraw from three segments due to safety gaps that could not be closed to its satisfaction.

He said a defensive driving training and HIV/AIDS programme was introduced to the employees, which will be extended to employees' spouses and children this year.

At the meeting, Mr. Sam Kareem from Zambia was introduced as the new managing director of the company and he is supposed to take over from July 1, this year.

Mr. John Bell replaced Mr. Kerry Raymond Wark who retired from Exxon Mobil and from the board on March 1, this year.

Mr. Edward Larbi Gyampoh and Mr. Micheal Smyth who retired were re-elected as directors.