Manish Gupta
State-run oil marketing company Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) on Monday reported a 159% hike in its standalone net profit to Rs 6,477.74 crore in Q4 FY23 as against Rs 2,501.08 crore in the year-ago quarter.
Marketing margins saw sharp increase in the quarter, thanks to a softening of crude prices, enabling the company to make up for the under-recoveries in the previous quarters.
The fourth quarter revenue from operations stood at Rs 1,33,413.81 crore, 8% higher than Rs 1,23,382 crore registered in the quarter ending March 2022, as per the full-year financial results filed by the refiner in an exchange.
The board has recommended dividend of Rs 4 per equity share of face value of Rs 10 each for the fiscal 2022-23, subject to the approval of the shareholders at the annual general meeting.
The full year profit fell 83.5% to Rs 1,870.10 crore in FY23 from Rs 11,363.35 crore in FY22 on a 23.4% rise in revenue from operations to Rs 5,33,467.55 crore in FY23 as compared to Rs 4,32,422.48 crore in fiscal 2021-22.
The company suffered major decline in its annual profit due to losses on retail sales of auto fuels, which were stagnant since April 2022 despite increase in oil prices.
The market sales of the corporation for FY23 was 48.92 MMT as compared to 42.51 MMT for the year ended March 31, 2022. Increase is mainly in ATF (65.64%), HSD-Retail (25.36%) and MS-Retail (18.01%).
The average Gross Refining Margin (GRM) for FY23 stood at $20.24 a barrel (FY22: $9.66 per barrel), the highest ever. This is before factoring the impact of special additional excise duty and road and infrastructure cess, levied with effect from July 1, 2022. However, the suppressed marketing margins of certain petroleum products have offset the benefit of higher GRM, the company said in its filing.
Sales also hit an all-time high of 48.92 MMT for FY23 as against 42.51 MMT in the comparative period, with growth of 15.08%.
Pursuant to MCA order, Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd was amalgamated with BPCL and the financial performance of Bina refinery was included in BPCL with effect from July 1, 2021, it said in a statement.
Also, pursuant to MCA order, Bharat Gas Resources Ltd was amalgamated with BPCL and the financial performance of BGRL was included in BPCL with effect from April 1, 2021.
“We have achieved average ethanol blending percentage of 10.59% during Apr to Dec 22 with highest blending in Q4 FY 2022-23 of 11.86%,” BPCL said in the statement.
BPCL added 300 new fuel stations in Q4 FY23 (986 in FY23), taking their network strength to 21,029, and 354 CNG stations commissioned in Q4 FY23 (482 in FY23) taking the total CNG stations to 1,602 as on March 31, 2023 .
The Government of India has approved a one-time grant of Rs 5,582 crore for compensating the under recoveries suffered by the corporation on sale of domestic LPG. This grant has been recorded under revenue from operations.
Other expenses for the year ended March 31, 2023 includes foreign exchange loss of Rs 1,497.81 crore (FY22: Rs 285.17 crore), the company said.
The outstanding borrowing stood at Rs 18,212.27 crore as on March 31, 2023, it added.