IOC records over two-fold jump in Q3 profit
New Delhi   11-Feb-2011


Mr S.V. Narasimhan (left), Chairman, IndianOil, and Mr Suneel Sethi, General Manager, at a press conference in the Capital on Thursday.

IndianOil (IOC) has reported a more than two-fold jump in its net profit to Rs 1,634.76 crore for the third quarter of the current fiscal against Rs 696.59 crore in the corresponding quarter last fiscal. This was mainly due to compensation from the Government for selling petroleum products below the cost price and better gross refining margins.

IOC got Government compensation of Rs 4,442 crore for the third quarter of the current financial year, Mr S.V. Narasimhan, Chairman, IndianOil, said.

The Government has approved payment of Rs 8,000-crore cash subsidy to compensate for half of the revenues which public sector oil companies lost on selling diesel, domestic LPG and PDS kerosene at a controlled price during the quarter.

Turnover up 17%

The company's gross turnover for the quarter rose 16.7 per cent to Rs 82,179 crore from Rs 70,431 crore during the same period last year.

During the quarter, the company earned $6.33 on every barrel of oil processed against $3.64 a barrel a year ago.

The public sector marketing companies – IOC, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation – are losing Rs 8.20 a litre on diesel, Rs 21.60 a litre on PDS kerosene and Rs 356 for every 14.2 kg of domestic LPG cylinder.

“For the full year, we estimate a gross under recovery of Rs 42,000 crore for IOC and about Rs 75,000 crore for the industry,” he said.

Mr Narasimhan said the company's borrowings was at Rs 50,724 crore as on December 31. In the total borrowing, IOC's foreign currency loans have risen to $4.3 billion from $3.2 billion as on March 31, 2010.

‘No project will be affected'

Asked if the company's projects will be affected due to financial constraints and whether there will be any change in IOC's strategy for overseas investments, he said: “No project will be affected. As regards overseas investments, it is not the right time to make large investments outside India. Though exploration and production activities continue to be our priority, we are not looking at downstream activities.”

Mr Narasimhan said that “IOC sold 18.422 million tonnes of products, including exports, during the third quarter. The refining throughput was 13.319 mt and the throughput of countrywide pipelines network went up by 1.205 mt to 17.080 mt as compared to the corresponding quarter of the previous year.”

The shares of the company ended at Rs 312.80 (Rs 314.45) on the BSE on Thursday.