West Indies Petroleum Limited

What it is

West Indies Petroleum Terminal Limited (WIPT) is Jamaica’s second-largest fuel storage facility, with a combined capacity of over 700,000 barrels split between two terminals — its main site at Port Esquivel, St. Catherine, and a smaller facility at Ocho Rios.

It earns money from storage and handling fees charged to shipping companies, fuel retailers, and manufacturers who move product through its tanks.

WIPT is a subsidiary of West Indies Petroleum Limited (WIP), part of a vertically integrated group spanning fuel import, storage, distribution, and bunkering services. The wider WIP group, founded in 2013, now claims roughly 30% of Jamaica’s fuel market.

Who owns it

Before the December 2025 listing, WIP Energy Ltd held 79.84% of WIPT, World Energy Solutions Ltd held 19.96%, director Kurt Boothe held 0.18%, and 102 employee shareholders held a combined 0.02%. WIP Energy itself acquired that majority stake from the ultimate parent, West Indies Petroleum Limited, in a May 2025 reorganisation designed to “maximise shareholder returns and facilitate capital markets activities.”

The free float on the Jamaica Stock Exchange is therefore tiny — essentially all shares belong to the two corporate shareholders — which helps explain the violent price swings since listing. Analysts cited the near-absence of shares actually available for trading, rather than business fundamentals, as the primary driver of the surge.

Who runs it

West Indies Petroleum was founded in 2012 by Gordon Shirley, Charles Chambers, and Tarik Felix. Gordon Shirley serves as Chairman of the WIP group board.

Charles Chambers is CEO of West Indies Petroleum.

WIPT’s listed-entity board carries three independent directors: Kurt Boothe, Amanda Levien, and Karl Townsend, who chairs its audit and compensation committees. A CFO for the listed entity is not disclosed in available sources.

The money, in plain words

For 2025 — the full year ended December 31 — WIPT reported revenue of US$8.83 million (up 8%) and net profit of US$2.29 million, doubling the US$1.04 million earned in 2024. That means it kept about 26 cents of profit from every dollar of sales — a net profit margin of 25.9% — strong for an infrastructure business of this size (our calculation).

The improvement was partly helped by a sharp drop in a one-off write-down, from US$1.04 million in 2024 to roughly US$260,000 in 2025, alongside genuine gains in storage throughput. Total assets nudged up to US$42.6 million from US$41.8 million a year earlier.

For every dollar shareholders put in, the company earned about 8.5 cents — a return on equity of 8.5%, modest but rising (our calculation).

What it is doing now

In February 2025, WIP announced a supply partnership with Sunoco LP, the US-based fuel distributor, to handle marine fuel in the Caribbean — a deal that began January 1, 2025, and is intended to position Jamaica as a regional marine fuel hub. It marks a shift away from long-time supplier BP.

In May 2025, the group completed a formal corporate reorganisation, placing WIP Terminal as a subsidiary of WIP Energy, creating a cleaner chain from storage through to distribution. WIPT then listed on the JSE Main Market on December 23, 2025.

What to watch

• Valuation vs. reality. At peak, the market valued WIPT at nearly US$1 billion — against shareholders’ equity of just US$29 million and annual profit of roughly US$2.3 million. A price-to-earnings ratio of ~326× (our calculation) prices in decades of flawless growth; any earnings disappointment could unwind that quickly.
• Third-party storage growth. Third-party storage fees rose to US$2.4 million, or 43% of total storage revenues in 2025, up from US$600,000 and just 10% a year earlier. Sustaining that shift is key to durable profit growth.
• Liquidity. The company ended 2025 with only US$112,500 in cash — thin cover for a business with US$5.95 million in short-term obligations. Watch whether the JSE listing opens equity or debt markets to bolster that buffer.
• Group structure. CEO Chambers has said WIP will eventually comprise five separate entities. Further spin-offs or listings could reshape the investable universe here.

This is news, not investment advice.