IOC'S STANDALONE PROFIT AT RS 6,107 CR IN H1
New Delhi   04-Nov-2015

With good performance of physical parameters such as sales, capacity utilisation and other factors, nation's biggest oil major State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) on Tuesday posted standalone profit of Rs6,107 crore on income from Rs1.86 lakh crore operations for half year ended on September 30, 2015. The company had reported a net profit of Rs1,624 crore on income from Rs2.36 lakh crore during the corresponding period in the previous year.

“Despite the fact that our standalone profit at Rs6,107 crore in first half of this fiscal, the company has made net loss of Rs329.17 crore in the July- September quarter on account of huge inventory and foreign exchange losses as well as low refining margins, compared to net loss of Rs898.46 crore in the same period a year ago,” IOC Chairman B Ashok told reporters here.

“On physical parameters front, we have done extremely well throughout first half of this fiscal. For instance, on sales we have done well as well. Also, capacity utilisation has been good although, but what impacted the most is inventory losses,” he added.

The company lost Rs5,137 crore on inventory as it bought crude at one price but sold at lower rates as prices had fallen during the period oil was transported, processed and turned into fuel. This compares to Rs4,272 crore inventory losses in the same period a year ago.

Also, there was a foreign exchange loss of Rs1,100 crore in the second quarter of 2015-16 as opposed to Rs672 crore loss in the same period of 2014-15.

IOC earned just 90 cents on turning every barrel of crude oil into fuel as compared to a negative gross refining margin (GRM) of $1.95 per barrel. Without the inventory loss, the GRM in the second quarter of the current fiscal should have been $6.92 per barrel as opposed to $3.25 last year.

Fall in oil price led to a drop in turnover to Rs85,384.81 crore in the period under review, as compared to Rs1,11,663.81 crore a year ago.

“All of its losses on sale of public distribution system (PDS) kerosene and domestic LPG at the Government-controlled rates were made good. The Government gave a cash subsidy of Rs1,715 crore and another Rs462 crore was received as dole from upstream firms like ONGC,” said Ashok.

“Refinery throughput increased to 13.683 million tons during the quarter from 13.407 million tons a year ago. Pipeline throughput was also up at 19.982 million tons as against 19.039 million tons. Sales were up 6 per cent at 18.15 million tons,” he said, adding that finance cost also was lower at Rs729 crore in the quarter under review as against Rs1,039 crore in the same period a year ago.