State-owned Indian Oil Corp or IOC today reported a net loss of Rs 3,093.23 crore for the April- June quarter on not being fully compensated for selling fuel below cost, and the rupee depreciation drilling a hole in its balance sheet.
The Q1 net loss was however much lower than Rs 22,450.95 crore suffered in the same period of 2012-13 fiscal.
IOC lost Rs 13,625 crore on selling diesel, cooking gas (LPG) and kerosene at government controlled rates during the April-June period.
Of this, the government compensated Rs 4,261.29 crore by way of cash subsidy. Another Rs 8,151.77 crore came as additional assistance from upstream firms like ONGC.
"We had a net under-recovery (revenue loss) of Rs 1,211.67 crore," IOC Chairman R S Butola told reporters here.
That apart, the 11 per cent dip in rupee value against the US dollar led to a foreign exchange loss of Rs 4,024.10 crore in Q1, up from Rs 3,187.01 crore in the same period last fiscal, he said.
Profit was also down because of one-time charge of Rs 400 crore towards employee benefit arrears.
"We had positives on refinery margins and petrochemical business turning positive," he said.
The company earned $1.67 on turning every barrel of crude oil into fuel as compared to a negative gross refining margin of $4.81 in the same period a year ago.
"Our refinery margins are not comparable with industry peers as unlike other companies, refineries and pipelines are separate profit centres for Indian Oil," Mr Butola said.
After taking the margins of two together, IOC had a combined gross refinery margin of USD 4.23 per barrel in Q1 as against a negative margin of USD 2.25 a year ago.
Mr Butola said the petrochemical business which till last year was loss making, has achieved optimum production capacity. "We had a petrochemical margin of Rs 779 crore in Q1 as compared to Rs 256 crore a year ago," he said.
Turnover rose to Rs 110,466.61 crore in April-June of the 2013-14 fiscal, from Rs 96,860.69 crore in the year-ago period.
Mr Butola said the company was currently losing Rs 9.29 per litre on diesel, Rs 33.54 a litre on kerosene and Rs 412 on domestic LPG.
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