IOC on Friday reported a standalone net profit of Rs 13,750 crore in the first quarter of the fiscal — the highest in a decade — as the margins on petrol and diesel turned positive on softer oil prices.
The PSU refiner had posted a loss of Rs 1,992.53 crore a year ago.
On a sequential basis, profit rose 37 per cent, It was more than half the company’s annual earning of Rs 24,184.10 crore recorded in 2021-22 .
IOC posted a net profit of Rs 14,513 crore in January-March 2013 after it received fuel subsidy for more than one quarter during those three months.
Last year, IOC and other government-owned fuel retailers — Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd — froze retail petrol and diesel prices to cushion domestic consumers from rising international oil rates. That freeze led to the three retailers suffering heavy losses in not just April-June 2022 but also in the subsequent quarter.
Margins on petrol and diesel turned positive following softening of international oil prices in the June quarter, but rates were not revised, and the companies recouped losses they incurred last year.
BPCL earlier this week reported a net profit ofRs 10,644 crore in the June quarter. HPCL is due toannounce its first-quarter earnings next week.
The fall in oil prices meant that revenue from operations for IOC fell 2.36 per cent to Rs 2.21 lakh crore.
Operational performance during the quarter improved as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) increased 44.5 per cent to Rs 22,163 crore from Rs 15,340 crore sequentially.
The company earned $8.34 on turning every barrel of crude oil into fuel duringthe quarter ended June 30 against a gross refining margin (GRM) of $31.81 per barrel in the same period last year, the filing said.
Core GRM was at $9.05 per barrel, after offsetting inventory loss/gain.
IOC said fuel sales rose to 21.8 million tonnes (mt) in the first quarter from 21.2 million (mt) tonnes a year back. Its refineries processed 18.26 million tonnes of crude oil up from 17.59 million tonnes in April-June 2022.
The three firms have been making positive margins on petrol since the fourth quarter of the 2022 calendar year but diesel, which accounts for the bulk of the fuel sales, had been in the red.
