Bharat Petroleum Q1 net profit nearly doubles to Rs 2,376 crore

State-owned Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) on Friday reported near doubling of its June quarter net profit to Rs 2,376 crore on back of robust margins and investory gains.

Net profit of Rs 2,376.16 crore, or Rs 32.86 per share, in April-June better Rs 1,216.26 crore, or Rs 16.82 a share, earning in the same period a year ago, BPCL said in a statement here.

The company earned $8.55 on turning every barrel of crude oil into fuel as compared to a gross refining margin of $3.38 per barrel in Q1 of last fiscal.

BPCL also had an inventory gain of Rs 587.22 crore in the quarter.

It said the government gave cash subsidy of Rs 404.02 crore and upstream firms like ONGC chipped in Rs 203.33 crore to cover all of the revenue loss on sale of kerosene through PDS.

Government has committed to meet all of the losses on domestic LPG as well.

BPCL said while it had to bear no losses on the cooking fuel sale this fiscal, it had absorbed Rs 503.87 crore loss on LPG and kerosene sale in April-June quarter of 2014.

Turnover however fell to Rs 51,966.07 crore from Rs 66,749.65 crore a year ago, primarily due to fall in crude prices.

BPCL plans to invest over Rs 30,000 crore over the next four years. In the current fiscal, it has earmarked a capex of Rs 10,000 crore primarily on the expansion of its Kochi refinery to 15.5 million tons per annum from the current 9.5 million tons.