New Delhi : Indian Oil Corp, the nation’s biggest oil company, today reported 2.5-fold jump in its June quarter net profit to Rs 6,436 crore as refining margin rose to 7-year high. It reported net profit of Rs 6,435.70 crore, or Rs 26.51 per share, for April-June quarter of the current fiscal, compared with Rs 2,522.94 crore, or Rs 10.39 a share, in the year-ago period.
“Variation in profit is majorly due to higher refinery and petrochemical margins,” IOC Chairman B Ashok said. It earned USD 10.77 on turning every barrel of crude oil into fuel in the first quarter of 2015-16, compared with a gross refining margin (GRM) of USD 2.25 per barrel.
“GRM are the highest since June quarter of 2008-09 fiscal when we clocked USD 16.81 per barrel margin,” he said.
Refinery throughput was 5.5 per cent higher at 13.568 million tonnes. “Our refinery margin in the quarter was Rs 6,521 crore as compared to Rs 705 crore in the corresponding period of last financial year. Petochem margin rose to Rs 1,875 crore from Rs 719 crore,” he said. Ashok said GRM were high because of inventory gain as well as better operational performance.
There was a total of Rs 3,218 crore of inventory gain, resulting from valuation of oil rising between the time it is bought, processed and sold.
Meanwhile, the Finance Ministry has shortlisted five merchant bankers, including Citibank and Nomura, for disinvestment of 10 per cent stake in Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), which could fetch the exchequer about Rs 9,500 crore.
As many as 10 merchant bankers had made a beeline for managing IOC stake sale and the disinvestment department has shortlisted five from them.
