Oil India Ltd energises quarterly profit by 11%

State-owned Oil India Ltd on Monday reported an 11 per cent rise in its second quarter net profit at Rs 674.80 crore, helped by higher realisation on crude oil sales. Company’s net profit in the July-September quarter a year ago stood at Rs 608.33 crore, the company said in a filing to stock exchanges.

Turnover increased to Rs 2,956.51 crore in the second quarter of the current fiscal, from Rs 2,620.44 crore in the year-ago period. 

With the government exempting upstream oil producers from payment of subsidy on LPG and ordering only a limited payout on kerosene, OIL’s earnings from crude oil sales were up 12 per cent to Rs 1,747.28 crore and pre-tax profit from oil sales rising 18.7 per cent to Rs 538.38 crore.

The company had to shell out Rs 84.50 crore to help state retailers sell PDS kerosene at subsidised rates. 

This compared to Rs 2,238.50 crore subsidy payout in the second quarter of the last fiscal. It had cash and cash equivalent of Rs 9,497.78 crore as on September 30, higher than Rs 8,707.30 crore as of March 31. Oil India also had debt of Rs 9,134.13 crore as on September 30 as opposed to Rs 8,341.08 crore on March 31. Oil India shares ended 0.69 per cent down at Rs 398.70 on the BSE. 

Meanwhile, state-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corp oration Ltd (HPCL) on Monday reported a net loss of Rs 320.50 crore in July-September quarter due to huge investory losses. The company had a net profit of Rs 850.21 crore in the same period a year ago, HPCL Director (Finance) J Ramaswamy said.

“The loss was mainly because crude oil dropped by $10 per barrel in the barrel resulting in an investory loss of Rs 1,400 crore. Also there was a foreign exchange loss of Rs 180 crore,” he said.

The company earned $2.3 on turning every barrel of crude oil into fuel in the quarter, almost unchanged from the gross refining margin it had earned in the same period a year ago. The drop in oil prices also meant that turnover dipped to Rs 42,072.27 crore from Rs 51.667.02 crore last year. The company board approved expanding capacity of its Mumbai Refinery from 6.5 million tonnes to 9.5 million tonnes at an estimated capital cost of Rs 4,200 crore.

“This project shall enable HPCL to meet the BS IV/V (EUro-IV/V) fuel specification as per the Auto Fuel Policy of Government of India,” a company press statement said.

Also, HPCL is in the process of commissioning the 443 km long Rewari-Kanpur product pipeline with a capacity of 7.98 million tons per annum at a capital cost of about Rs 1400 crores.

“The commissioning of this pipeline will give us a strategic advantage in feeding the northern and central states which are witnessing a strong demand growth for petroleum products,” the statement said.

The other two new LPG pipelines that are currently under implementation -- Uran-Chakan/ Shikrapur and Mangalore-Hassan- Mysore-Solur are progressing well and are expected to complete as per schedules in 2016.