Revenue from operations grew 1% to Rs 218,608 crore in the three months ended June.
“Improvement in net profit is mainly on account of higher refining and marketing margins being set off to some extent by inventory losses,” the state-run refiner and retailer said.
Indian Oil incurred an inventory loss of Rs 6,465 crore during the quarter compared to an inventory gain of Rs 3,345 crore a year earlier, said AS Sahney, chairman, referring to the strong impact of inventory in the quarterly earnings.
The company’s gross refining margin (GRM) for the quarter stood at $2.15 per barrel compared to $6.39 per barrel in the year-earlier period. (Recheck this) After removing the effect of inventory loss and gain, margin would be $6.91 compared to $2.84 a year earlier.
Indian Oil and other domestic fuel retailers like BPCL and HPCL have been enjoying strong marketing margins on retail sales of petrol and diesel since they have continued to keep pump prices frozen despite a decline in international fuel rates.Indian Oil had an under-recovery of Rs 3,858 crore on the sale of cooking gas during the quarter compared to Rs 4,294 crore a year earlier. The government has decided to compensate oil marketing companies to the tune of Rs 30,000 crore for LPG under-recoveries, but the modalities are yet to be worked out.Indian Oil reported the highest-ever quarterly sales volume of 26.32 million metric tonnes (MMT) in April-June compared to 25.25 MMT in the year-ago period. The company’s domestic petroleum sales volume rose 4.2% against the industry’s 3.9%. Institutional diesel sales volume increased 40.3% compared to industry’s 14.8%. Average capacity utilisation at its refineries was 107% during the quarter.Shares in Indian Oil, valued at about Rs 198,000 crore, ended 1.58% lower at Rs 140.15 apiece on Thursday when the benchmark BSE Sensex closed nearly unchanged.
