Dekel Agri-Vision Plc (LON:DKL), the West Africa-focused agriculture company, has announced its interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2021. 

The Company will be hosting a shareholder conference call at 2pm UK time on 28 September 2021.  The call will be hosted by Executive Director, Lincoln Moore and Deputy CEO Shai Kol, who will discuss the interim results and provide an update on activity across its portfolio of projects.  Further information about the call can be found at the end of this announcement, as well as in the presentation, which will be uploaded to the corporate website prior to the conference call.

Key Highlight s

Palm Oil Operation

· Record H1 2021 Revenue of €21.7m, an increase of 40.9% compared to H1 2020

· Record H1 2021 EBITDA of €3.9m, an increase of 105.3% compared to H1 2020 

· A near record H1 2021 Net Profit of €2.0m, an increase of 400% compared to H1 2020.  An excellent result given this included pre-production cashew operating expenses for the first time, in addition to timing issues which resulted in a higher than normal CPO inventory being sold post period end.

Cashew Project

· Construction of the cashew processing plant has made huge strides in H1 2021.  We are on the cusp of first production within the next 50 days, with the commissioning phase now also commenced

Financial Overview

As set out in the table below – the Company’s first half financial performance has been excellent, particularly when set against the backdrop of COVID-19. 

	H1 2021	H1 2020	% change
Revenue	€21.7m	€15.4m	40.9%
Gross Margin	€4.9m	€2.6m	88.4%
Gross Margin %	22.6%	16.8%	34.5%
G&A	(€1.7m)	(€1.4m)	-21.4%
EBITDA	€3.9m	€1.9m	105.3%
Net profit / (loss) after tax	€2.0m	€0.4m	400.0%

Production – palm oil project, Ayenouan Côte d’Ivoire

· A very strong first-half year of global Crude Palm Oil (‘CPO’) prices and an improvement in CPO volumes produced and sold during H1 2021 drove the material improvement in results

· 35.7% increase in average realised sales price of €817 per tonne of CPO (H1 2020: €602)

o  CPO prices rallied strongly during the first half to around a 10-year high.  Current prices post 30 June 2021 remain even higher than the price average of H1 2021, with current prices being achieved of over €900 per tonne 

· 26,515 tonnes of CPO produced in first half, 11.0% higher than H1 2020 production of 23,882 tonnes.  We believe this is due to the stabilisation of operations and logistics following the peak Covid-19 disruption in H1 2020

· The extraction rate remained solid at 21.4%, although below H12020 result of 22.5% due to lower oil content in the Fresh Fruit Bunches (‘FFB’)

· 3.7% increase in CPO sales of 24,784 tonnes (H1 2020: 23,906 tonnes).  Higher levels of stock on hand at the end of H1 2021 compared to H1 2020 have now been sold post period end  

· ESG milestones achieved included completion of final pre-audit of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certification process setting us up to deliver our goal of RSPO certification

Imminent production – cashew processing project at Tiebissou in Côte d’Ivoire

· Production on course to commence within the next 50 days at which point Tiebissou will become Dekel’s second producing asset and provide exposure to the high margin, global cashew market

· Tiebissou expected to lead to step-up in Dekel’s revenue and profitability as operations ramp up in 2022

New Ventures – proceeding cautiously due to significant focus upon bringing Tiebissou to production and COVID-19 market volatility

· New commodity project – one venture in Côte d’Ivoire being actively considered as a new project for the Company is currently undertaking an independent feasibility process

· Hybrid power project – feasibility study being undertaken by JV partner Green Enesys on the development of a 30MW solar PV plant and a 5-6MW biomass plant using feedstock from Ayenouan

Dekel Executive Director Lincoln Moore said, “Following a two to three year period of challenging trading conditions due to low CPO prices and more recently, Covid-19, we believe H1 2021’s record results have been an outstanding outcome for the Company and come at an important moment as we shortly commence production at our Cashew project.  In addition, with global crude palm oil prices currently trading at cyclical highs, we are extremely confident that our H2 2021 results will also show material improvement compared to H2 2020. 

“Looking forward into 2022, we believe that the Company is well positioned to enter a period of sustained growth in financial performance.  Together with the current high palm oil prices, the other key catalyst behind the step-up in performance will be, we expect, the incorporation of the first full year of Cashew production, which will diversify and significantly increase our profitability profile.  We look forward to providing further updates on progress made over what appears to be a very exciting next six months for the Company.”   

Conference Call

Lincoln Moore and Shai Kol will provide a live presentation relating to the Interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2021 via the Investor Meet Company platform on 28th Sep 2021 at 2:00pm BST.

The presentation is open to all existing and potential shareholders. Questions can be submitted pre-event via your Investor Meet Company dashboard up until 9am the day before the meeting or at any time during the live presentation.

Investors can sign up to Investor Meet Company for free and add to meet DEKEL AGRI-VISION PLC via:

https://www.investormeetcompany.com/dekel-agri-vision-plc/register-investor

Investors who already follow DEKEL AGRI-VISION PLC on the Investor Meet Company platform will automatically be invited.