State-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) today reported a more than trebling of net profit in the March quarter after the government compensated the nation's biggest refiner for selling diesel and cooking fuels below cost, according to an FE report.
The net profit rose to Rs 12,670.43 crore, or Rs 52.19 a share, in the January-March quarter from Rs 3,905.16 crore, or Rs 16.08 per share, a year earlier, the company said in filing to the stock exchanges.
IOC said it got Rs 45,484 crore subsidy from the government to make up for most of the revenue it lost on selling diesel, domestic cooking gas (LPG) and kerosene below cost during the 2011-12 fiscal. The firm, as also Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum, sell these fuels at government controlled rates to keep inflation under check. After the compensation, the company had to absorb just Rs 22.37 crore loss on the four fuel. It earned $ 4.25 on turning every barrel of crude oil into fuel in the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2012 as against $ 7.56 a barrel gross refining margin a year ago. In the full fiscal, GRMs stood at USD 3.63 per barrel as compared to $ 5.72 a barrel in 2010-11 fiscal. IOC, which declared dividend of Rs 5 per share, reported a forex loss of Rs 2,769 crore in FY'12. Its exceptional loss was of Rs 1,540 crore on account of entry tax. Sales increased 30 percent to Rs 128,433.96 crore from Rs 98,482.45 crore. The net profit in 2011-12 fiscal at Rs 3,954.62 crore was down from Rs 7,445.48 crore in the previous year, the report added.
