Net profit of Rs 10,399.03 crore in fiscal year ended March 31, 2016 was second only to Oil and Natural Gas Corp's Rs 16,004 crore net profit in 2015-16 fiscal.
IOC net profit in 2015-16 was almost double of Rs 5,273.03 crore net profit in the previous fiscal, company Chairman B Ashok told reporters here.
"We have had an outstanding year in terms of both operating performance and profit," he said.
Petrochemical sales were up 2 per cent to 2.538 million tons, he said.
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Turnover, however, dipped 11.4 per cent to Rs 450,738 crore on back of drop in oil prices.
"The profit in 2015-16 is the highest ever and better than Rs 10,200 crore profit in 2009-10," he said.
The profit was aided by sharp drop in revenue loss or under-recoveries on sale of LPG and kerosene because of crash in international oil prices.
Ashok said debt had come down to Rs 52,469 crore as on March 31, 2016 from Rs 55,248 crore a year earlier.
Also, the company has cut down on procurement cost and inventory losses for the full year have almost halved to Rs 9,731 crore.
But for the January-March quarter, IOC posted an 80 per cent drop in net profit to Rs 1,235.64 crore.
"This was due to inventory loss of Rs 3,335 crore as against Rs 871 crore inventory loss in Q4 of 2014-15," he said adding there was also a provision of Rs 881 crore made for impairment of asset following sharp fall in crude oil prices.
"For oil companies profitability should be looked at from the point of view of the full year," he said.
The company earned USD 8.7 on turning every barrel of crude oil into fuel in the January-March quarter, up from a gross refining margin of USD 3 a barrel a year earlier.
Low oil prices meant turnover dropped to Rs 80,449.57 crore in the fourth quarter of 2015-16 fiscal from Rs 93,830.13 crore a year ago.
Shares of Indian Oil closed 3.01 per cent up at Rs 414.05 apiece on BSE.