Hindustan Petroleum Posts Profit of Rs 46 Crore in June Quarter

New Delhi: State-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) on Monday reported a net profit of Rs 46 crore in the quarter ended June 2014 as compared to a net loss of Rs 1,460 crore after it got compensated for almost all of the loss on fuel sales.

HPCL lost Rs 6,620 crore on selling diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene at government controlled rates in April-June. Out of this, it got Rs 2,516 crore from government as cash subsidy and another Rs 3,609 crore from upstream firms like ONGC, leaving an unmet loss of Rs 495 crore.

"Despite not receiving full under-recovery compensation and lower throughput, it has been a good quarter for us," HPCL chairman and managing director Nishi Vasudeva told reporters in Delhi.

HPCL's Mumbai and Visakh refineries turned 3.28 million tons of crude into products in Q1, down from 3.44 million tons crude throughput a year ago, mainly because of maintenance shutdown at the two units.

It earned $2.04 on turning on every barrel of crude oil into fuel as against $2.58 per barrel gross refining margin in the same period last fiscal, she said.

Sales rose 15 per cent to Rs 61,183 crore.

"The domestic sales of petroleum products have increased to 8.05 million tonnes registering a growth of above 3.3 per cent over the first quarter of previous year, as against the industry average growth of 2.6 per cent," she said.

The sales of Motor Spirit (petrol) increased by 9.4 per cent, aviation turbine fuel by 10.4 per cent and that of high speed diesel by 0.6 per cent, over the first quarter of the previous year.

She said HPCL has commissioned Diesel Hydro Treater at Mumbai Refinery at a cost of about Rs 2,000 crores. HPCL has also commissioned a state of the art rail fed depot at Bihta (Patna) in Bihar at an investment of Rs 171 crore.

HPCL also commissioned ATF facilities and Euro IV Tank Wagon loading facilities at Ennore Terminal thereby completely discontinuing white oil operations at Tondiarpet(Chennai) Terminal.

"This has enabled HPCL to comply with directions of National Green Tribunal to close the entire white oil operations at Tondiarpet," she said.

Four new pipelines are currently under implementation - Rewari-Kanpur; Uran-Chakan/ Shikrapur for LPG; Mangalore-Hassan-Mysore for LPG and Awa-Salawas.

The physical progress achieved in all these pipelines as of June, 2014, is on schedule, she added.