IndianOil’s losing streak continues
New Delhi   11-Aug-2011

IndianOil on Wednesday reported a net loss of Rs. 3,719 crore for the first quarter ( April- June) of this fiscal as the government did not fully reimburse it for the revenue loss on diesel, LPG and kerosene at controlled prices while the cost of importing crude oil has skyrocketed.

IOC, which accounts for over half the petroleum products sold in the country, had reported a net loss of Rs. 3,388 crore in the April- June quarter of 2010- 11.

IOC chairman R. S. Butola said the company’s net loss has gone up as under-recoveries on diesel, LPG and kerosene sales have increased to Rs. 23,806 crore during the first quarter.

The government had directed upstream oil firms Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) and gas major GAIL to contribute Rs. 7,932 crore towards the subsidy burden and the finance ministry had agreed to provide another Rs. 8,201 crore as assistance through a comfort letter.

However, this still left an uncovered gap of Rs. 7,673 crore for the quarter, which was higher than the Rs. 7,343 crore uncovered deficit for the April- June quarter of last year.

Butola said that since the finance ministry has been delaying the reimbursement payments, IOC has to take recourse to increased borrowings to import crude oil. As a result, the firm lost another Rs. 467 crore by way of higher interest burden during the quarter.

IOC director (finance) P. K. Goyal disclosed that the firm’s borrowings have gone up by about Rs. 15,000 crore in Q1 from Rs. 52,734 crore at the end of March to Rs. 67,458 crore on June 30.

IOC earned $ 4.71 on turning every barrel of crude oil into petroleum products in the April- June quarter as opposed to a gross refining margin of $ 3 per barrel a year ago.

Turnover rose about 28 per cent to Rs. 99,757 crore in Q1, Butola said.

IOC refined 19.259 million tonnes of petroleum products, including for exports, in Q1. The quarterly refining throughtput was 14.306 million tonnes and the throughput of the company’s countrywide pipeline network went up by 2.792 million tonnes to 19.281 million tonnes.

Butola also disclosed that at the current level of crude oil prices IOC was losing around Rs. 143 crore in revenue on fuel sales every day. The revenue loss on diesel was around Rs. 6 per litre and that on kerosene Rs. 23.74 a litre while the under- recovery on LPG sold to households worked out to Rs. 247 per cylinder.

Meanwhile, IOC’s Rs. 15,000-crore share sale has been deferred till this year-end due to unfavourable market conditions and rising global crude oil prices. The follow-on public offering (FPO) was earlier planned for first quarter of 2011 calendar year.