IOC March Quarter Net Profit Goes Up By 50 per cent
Commenting on the profit IOC chairman AS Sahney said that firm earned $7.85 on turning every barrel of crude oil into fuel in the quarter as compared to $8.39 per barrel gross refining margins a year back
New Delhi: State-owned oil retailer Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) on Wednesday posted a 50 per cent jump in its March quarter net profit as inventory gains negated losses on sale of subsidised domestic cooking gas LPG. The company witnessed standalone net profit of Rs 7,264.85 crore in January-March quarter compared to Rs 4,837.69 crore earnings in the same period a year back, according to the company.
Commenting on the profit IOC chairman AS Sahney said that firm earned $7.85 on turning every barrel of crude oil into fuel in the quarter as compared to $8.39 per barrel gross refining margins a year back. IOC had inventory gains in Q4 as compared to losses in the previous year, he said without disclosing exact numbers. “Our performance has improved on all physical parameters and so has our efficiency and we have started to regain market share,” he said in a post-earnings media briefing here.
The profit was also higher quarter-on-quarter when compared to Rs 2,873.534 crore earnings in the October-December 2024 period. The earnings soared as the company processed crude oil bought at lower prices and sold products made from it when prices had risen, resulting in inventory gains. These inventory gains undid Rs 5,601 crore of losses on LPG sales and lower refining margins.
IOC and other state-owned fuel retailers sold cooking gas LPG at rates lower than cost but were not compensated by the government in 2024-25 fiscal (FY25). LPG is a subsidised fuel, and the government is supposed to provide subsidies to the three retailers to make up for the difference between the retail-selling price and the actual cost of production.
However, IOC in the filing said that it lost Rs 5,601 crore on selling domestic LPG at below cost in the January-March (Q4) and Rs 19,926 crore in the full FY25. Alongside raising LPG prices, the government had hiked excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 2 per litre each to raise about Rs 32,000 crore in additional revenue. This additional revenue, Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had on April 7 said, could be used to provide LPG subsidy to BPCL and other retailers.
