State-owned Oil India Ltd (OIL) today reported 27 per cent jump in its net profit for the quarter ended September 30 on back of higher crude oil and natural gas prices.
OIL posted a net profit of Rs 916.03 crore in July-September quarter, as against Rs 722.56 crore in the same period a year ago, the company said in a statement here.
The company sold 0.951 million tons of crude oil in the quarter at a net price of $63.17 per barrel, as opposed to 0.935 million tons at $56.93 a barrels in the second quarter of the previous fiscal.
OIL's outgo towards subsidising fuel was higher at Rs 399.40 crore in the second quarter this fiscal, compared to Rs 353.52 crore subsidy outgo in the year-ago period.
Upstream firms like OIL and Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) give discounts on crude oil they sell to refineries to make up for one-third of the revenues Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum lose on selling diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene below cost.
Though natural gas sales were marginally lower at 0.442 billion cubic meters, as against 0.46 bcm in Q2 of FY'10, OIL got a better price for the fuel.
The government has more than doubled the gas price to $4.2 per million British thermal unit.
"Natural gas production suffered due to low upliftment by customers and supply of gas to Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) could not commence due to Duliajan-Numaligarh pipeline not commissioned as envisaged," the statement said.
OIL said its first two wells in an exploration acreage in Libya "reflected the presence of hydrocarbons" but the quantities present were not commercially viable. "The third exploratory well is being drilled in Block 102/4 (in Libya)."
In Gabon, 2D seismic data processing and interpretation has been completed on an exploration block while drilling of first well in Timor Leste is expected to start mid-November.
