State-owned Bharat Petroleum Corp expects its Russian crude to form 35% of its total imports for the remaining year of FY26 as long as there are no new sanctions on Russian oil, the company said in an analyst call on Thursday.

Russian Oil Procurement Steady Despite Narrower Discounts

“We are expecting again the flow (of Russian oil) should come back to normal level of 30-35%. As long as there is no new sanction on Russian oil, our procurement strategy will be 30-35% of Russian crude for the remaining year,” the company said.

In the first quarter of the current fiscal year 2025-26, the company procured 34% of Russian crude. The company also informed that discounts on Russian oil have come down to the level of $1.5 per barrel. The discounts stood at $18-20/bbl at the beginning period of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

“This quarter our Russian crude procurement is about 34%. In terms of inventory levels, we have kept a little bit more inventory in the months of March and April because of geopolitical issues. Our inventory levels during March 2025 was 2.9 million tonnes whereas generally we keep 2.3-2.4 MMT,” the company said.

Capex Plans and Pricing Strategy

For the current fiscal 2025-26, the company has laid out a capex plan of Rs 20,000 crore of which it plans to spend Rs 6,500 crore in refinery and petrochemicals, Rs 1,400 crore in marketing and pipelines, Rs 4,000 crore in its retail outlet expansion, and Rs 2,000 crore on LPG cylinders and marketing. It further plans an equity investment of Rs 2,500 crore in Bharat PetroResources (BPRL) for FY26.

The company has set a capex plan of up to Rs 25,000 crore for FY27 and Rs 35,000 crore for FY28 and FY29 both.

Speaking on the recent budgetary compensation of Rs 30,000 crore to the oil marketing companies for their under recoveries on sale of LPG, BPCL is expecting at least 25-26% of the compensation package within the same level of its market share.

The company also shared that it does not plan to reduce the auto fuel prices as of now due to uncertainties in the geopolitical situation.

“At this point of time there is no decision to cut auto fuel prices as geopolitical tensions are still uncertain. We don’t know how the trend will change suddenly. We have to wait and see for some more time,” said the company.

On Wednesday, the company reported a surge of as much as 140.7% in its consolidated net profit for the first quarter of the financial year 2025-26 at Rs 6,839.02 crore from Rs 2,841.55 crore in the same period the previous fiscal.