Essar Oil Q2 net drops 14% to Rs 201 cr

Company's Vadinar refinery in Gujarat processed lesser crude due to maintenance shutdown

Essar Oil on Friday reported a 14 per cent drop in the September quarter net profit as its Vadinar refinery in Gujarat processed

less crude oil due to a maintenance shutdown. It posted a net profit at Rs 201 crore, against Rs 234 crore profit a year ago.
 

"This was due to fewer operational days on account of planned refinery turnaround during September/October 2015, of which 13 days were in the July-September quarter," Essar said in a press statement.

Turnover fell 36 per cent to Rs 15,561 crore due to lower throughput and lower oil prices compared with the corresponding period.

 

Gross refining margin for Essar stood at $9.33 per barrel compared to a gross refining margin of $7.03 per barrel in the year ago period.

For the first half, Essar Oil saw profit rise of 37 per cent to Rs 1,264 crore. 

The company said domestic sales made up for 46 per cent of the revenues as it exported more fuel on account of lower offtake by public sector customers due to monsoon and restart of some of their refineries post shutdown.

Essar Oil Managing Director and CEO L K Gupta termed the quarter as satisfactory and said the refinery turnaround which "will further improve operational flexibility and boost margins".

Retail business, Gupta added, continues to grow and is seeing encouraging response and improvement in retail sales. 

Suresh Jain, CFO Essar Oil said: "Our EBIDTA for the quarter as well as half year is better compared to the corresponding periods. Our PAT for the quarter is marginal lower compared to Q2FY15 mainly on account of lower throughput due to planned shutdown, lower product cracks and negative inventory variations." 

Retail sales accounted for 10 per cent of Essar Oil's revenues in Q2FY16 as against 3 per cent in the corresponding quarter last fiscal.

During the quarter, Vadinar Refinery commenced (nearly a month long) planned turnaround shutdown on September 18, 2015. The unit was shut for 13 days during the quarter. The turnaround project was successfully completed on October 16, after 28 days of shutdown.

During the quarter, Essar Oil commissioned 148 new petrol pumps. It now has about 1,700 operational retail outlets nationwide with another 1,900 in various stages of implementation.