Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) has registered a 16.5 per cent increase in net profit for fiscal 2000-01, despite a low 3.5 per cent growth in net profit for the last quarter. The net profit stood at Rs 820.1 crore against Rs 703.9 crore during 1999-2000.
Net sales rose 37.5 per cent to Rs 45,932.1 crore from Rs 33,384.7 crore. The company's board of directors has recommended a 75 per cent dividend on enhanced equity as against 125 per cent on pre-bonus equity during previous quarter.
Refining margins, which fell to $2.4 from $3.1 per barrel in the last fiscal, due to higher international crude prices, reduced growth in profits during the quarter to Rs 160 crore, compared with Rs 154.5 crore in the corresponding period last year.
Ashok Sinha, director (finance) of BPCL said: "The pressure on refining margins during the last quarter was responsible for growth in net profit to just 3.5 per cent. We expect a 6 per cent increase in product sales during the current fiscal. The company recorded a 3.6 per cent growth in market sales during the fiscal."
Crude throughput during the year, at 8.66 million tonne, was lower than 8.87 million tonne in the previous fiscal, due to the shutdown of its crude distillation and catalytic cracking units.
During the fiscal, the company's business-to-business (B2B) site conducted business transactions worth over Rs 2,000 crore. The company has enrolled 2.25 lakh customers for its Petrocard, and 2,500 customers for its Smart Fleet card during the year.
Board nod for VRS
The board of BPCL has given an "in-principle approval" for introducing a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS).
While declining to quantify the number of people who will be targeted or the exact cost to be incurred, Ashok Sinha, director (finance) of BPCL said: "Our programme will be similar to the Indian Oil VRS scheme. We felt a need for VRS as there could be pockets of surplus people in the organisation. The intention is not to chop off blocks of people from the organisation. The amount incurred will depend on the number of people who opt for the scheme and could be something like Rs 30-40 crore."
