Indian Oil bottomline drops to Rs 5.83 crore

BS 200 SCORECARD

State-run oil major Indian Oil Corporation has registered net loss of Rs 5.83 crore for the third quarter ended December 2005 as against Rs 1,286.76 crore in the corresponding period of the last year.

However, turnover for the same period moved up by 23.7 per cent to Rs 48,895 crore from Rs 39,529 crore.

Announcing the results, S Bahuria, chairman, said, "Lower profits are primarily due to non-realisation of market-related prices for petrol, diesel, public distribution system (PDS), kerosene and domestic liquified petroleum gas (LPG) during the current financial year, which increased to Rs 8,106 crore for the period April-December 2005 as compared with Rs 6,496 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year."

"The gross turnover of IOC has moved up by 22.3 per cent to Rs 1,34,722 crore during the nine month to December from Rs 1,10,169 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year. IOC has sold 37.34 million tonne of products including exports during the period April-December 2005," he added.

The throughput of its refineries and pipelines network for the quarter stood at 9.86 million tonne (MT) and 11.73 MT respectively, higher than that of the same quarter last year. The throughput of refineries and pipelines during the nine months was 28.43 MT and 33.81 MT respectively. "Fuel price subsidies cost Rs 2,479 crore in the quarter. Average gross refining margin for the October-December quarter fell to $3.36 per barrel from $5.4 per barrel a year ago.

The company also incurred a loss of Rs140 crore in foreign exchange transactions due to high volatility," Bahuria said.

In the first quarter of FY06 IOC had posted its first ever net loss of Rs 54.23 crore as the government declined to increase petrol and diesel prices to match the increase in the international crude price. But in the second quarter it came back with a net profit of Rs 949.72 crore.

The company's Q3 results is indicative of the other majors in the petroleum refining sector, said industry experts. The Central government had increased fuel prices by 7 per cent in September 2005, after refiners complained of the heavy losses they were incurring. But this was not enough to avoid the loss.