ONGC's net profit for the fourth quarter of FY 11 dropped 26 per cent on back of higher subsidy sharing.
ONGC Chairman and Managing Director, Mr A K Hazarika, said lower fourth quarter profit is because of higher discounts extended to public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) to meet their under-recoveries. During the fourth quarter, ONGC's subsidy burden stood at Rs 12,136 crore (Rs 4,999 crore). According to ONGC, had the subsidy burden not increased, the net profit would have been higher by over Rs 2,000 crore.
For the fiscal 2010-11, the net profit was up 13 per cent and sales grew 10 per cent. During the year, ONGC's subsidy burden stood at Rs 24,892 crore (Rs 11,554 crore).
ONGC along with Oil India Ltd and GAIL (India) extends discounts to the OMCs to partially compensate them for their revenue loss on selling petroleum products at a Government controlled price. Earlier, ONGC and other upstream companies met one-third of the losses incurred by OMCs but in FY 11 the sharing has gone up to 38.7 per cent.
Mr Hazarika said ONGC's net realisation on every barrel of crude oil sold during the fourth quarter was $38.75 a barrel after giving a discount of $ 70.15/barrel. For the fiscal, the net realisation was $53.77 after giving a discount of $35.64 a barrel.
The company also notified three discoveries one each in KG shallow offshore, Western offshore, and Cauvery onshore. All are marginal fields.
Dividend
The board also recommended dividend payout of Re 0.75 per share on number of shares enhanced due to split and an issue of bonus shares aggregating Rs 35 per share based on pre-split and pre bonus number of shares. Total dividend payout for FY 11 is Rs 7,486 crore.
ONGC's crude oil output for the full year stood at 27.28 million tonne (including the joint ventures) versus 26.46 mt in FY 10. Gas output was 25.32 billion cubic metre versus 25.60 billion cubic metre in FY 10.
RUSSIA : A consortium led by ONGC has placed a bid for a stake in Novatek's liquefied natural gas project in the Russian Arctic, ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), Managing Director, Mr Joeman Thomas, said.
Other consortium members include Petronet, and GAIL for a stake in Yamal LNG. The Indian consortium is looking at less than 20 per cent stake.
The ONGC stock on Monday at the BSE were down 1.63 per cent at Rs 278.40.