BPCL profits rise 16.5% to Rs 820 cr; declares 75% bonus

Our Corporate Bureau

Mumbai, June 6: BHARAT Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) has posted a 16.5 per cent increase in net profit for the year ended March 31, 2001 at Rs 820.1 crore, as compared to Rs 703.9 crore for the previous year. Total income for the year recorded a 31.1 per cent jump and stood at Rs 46,852.8 crore as against Rs 35,743 crore reported last year.

The board has approved a dividend of 75 per cent on enhanced equity as against 125 per cent on pre-bonus equity during the previous year. The directors have decided to pay an interim dividend of Rs 4 per share and also recommended a final dividend of Rs 3.50 per share. The board has fixed July 11, 2001 as the record date for deciding the entitlement of the shareholders.

The board has informed the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) that it has, at its board meeting, in-principle approved a Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) for its employees. Accordingly, the BPCL management proposes to introduce the scheme at an appropriate time, the company said in a press release.

The company has said that it achieved a growth in the net profit, despite the increased depreciation. This includes Rs 417 crore spent on procurement of LPG cylinders as well as high interest costs mainly due to increased borrowings to meet enhanced working capital needs. This has arisen out of higher prices of crude oil products and the outstanding amount receivable from the oil pool account.

The press release added that BPCL’s Mahul refinery achieved a lower crude throughput of 86.6 lakh tonne as against 88.7 lakh tonne the previous year, due to planned shutdown of crude distillation and catalytic cracking units.

The refinery’s gross margins during the year was $ 3.1 per barrel as compared to $ 2.4 per barrel for the previous year, it added. BPCL achieved an overall growth of 3.6 per cent in its market sales volume mainly on account of High Speed Diesel (1.3 per cent), Motor Spirit-retail (13.3 per cent), Aviation Turbine Fuel (4.9 per cent), Liquified Petroleum Gas (12.6 per cent), Naphtha (10.3 per cent), Furnace Oil (six per cent) and Bitumen (6.1 per cent).

In order to address product security concerns arising in the deregulated scenario, BPCL has acquired 55.04 per cent stake in Kochi Refineries Ltd from the Centre and 19 per cent stake in Numaligarh Refineries Ltd from IBP Ltd, the company said.

Consequent to this acquisition both the above mentioned stand alone refineries have become subsidiaries of BPCL from March 26 and 31 2001 respectively, the release added.