The board of directors has recommended a dividend of Rs 12.50 per share which works out to Rs 208.13 crores including tax on dividend at the payout ratio of 29.7 per cent.

The earnings per share for the year is Rs 46.75 as against Rs 35.51 for the previous year, a growth of 32 per cent. During the year, the performance of the refinery was the highest ever registering a record throughput of 8.94 million tonnes against 7.94 million tonnes during 1997-98. Sales increased to 17.50 million tonnes from 16.37 million tonnes, indicating a 6.9 per cent growth.

The release states that the increase in sales of major products was liquefied petroleum gas (11.2 per cent),motor spirit (7.8 per cent), high speed diesel (4.8 per cent), superior kerosene oil (8.6 per cent) and lubricants (16.2 per cent).

The return on capital employed increased to 17.3 per cent from 14.9 per cent during the previous year. Similarly, return on average networth improved to 25.3 per cent from 23.1 per cent. While the increase in crude throughput and sales have contributed to the improvements in the profit levels, a major contributing factor was increase in the profitability of the refinery operations, arising out of the abolition of the retention pricing concept for the refining sector effective April 1, 1998.

The company embarked upon an ambitious programme aimed at redesigning the organisation with a view to improving the response time and providing greater customer focus. As a result, a new process-based organisation with six strategic business units was formed during the current year. A number of human resource initiatives were also undertaken. While it is too early to assess theeffectiveness of these measures, all-around improvements are already evident.

The company is in the advanced stage of achieving year 2000 compliance for all its internal operations. The project is expected to be completed by end September 1999 for which the directly identifiable cost would be around Rs 2.5 crores.