Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) reported a 5.7% drop in its net profit at Rs 4,808 crore, following a two-fold rise in its outgo on fuel subsidies in the July-September quarter. Net profit at Rs 4,808 crore in Q2 was down from Rs 5,098 crore in the same period last fiscal.
ONGC chairman & managing director RS Sharma said the decline in profit was due to the outgo on fuel subsidies, which mounted to Rs 12,663 crore from Rs 3,799 crore a year ago.
Significantly, even as ONGC?s gross realisation on crude oil sales in Q2 was $119.39 per barrel, its net realisation was only $46.72 per barrel as the corporation had to give a discount of $72.67 per barrel to the refiners. As against this, in Q2 last year, ONGC?s net realisation was $56.14 per barrel after giving a discount of $22.10 per barrel.
Upstream companies ONGC, OIL and Gail have to bear one-third of the revenue loss that IOC, BPCL and HPCL suffer on sale of petrol, diesel, LPG and kerosene.
ONGC?s sales grew 13.1% to Rs 17,492 crore in Q2. Crude oil production was marginally down at 6.853 million tonne against 7 mt last year. Gas output stood at 6.43 billion cubic metre as opposed to 6.35 bcm last year. Sharma said net profit in the first half, April-September, grew 17.9% to 11,445 crore, while sales were up 28.9% to Rs 37,614 crore. Subsidy outgo in H1 jumped 201.7% to Rs 22,747 crore.