State-run Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) on Thursday reported a 37 per cent Y-o-Y fall in its consolidated net profit at ₹1,747 crore for the December quarter in FY23 due to losses on retail prices of auto fuels, which have been stagnant since April 2022.
The PSUs consolidated revenue rose 13 per cent Y-o-Y to ₹1.33-lakh crore in Q3 FY23. On a sequential basis, the company had reported a net loss of ₹339 crore, while revenue stood at ₹1.28-lakh crore.
For the nine months (9M) ended December 31, 2023, BPCL posted a net loss of ₹4,607.64 crore compared to a profit of ₹ 8,862.27 crore.
The profitability of oil marketing companies (OMCs) has been stretched in FY23, ending March 2023, as the government put a freeze on retail prices of petrol and diesel to tame inflation.
For the 9M FY23 period, the OMC reported a foreign exchange loss of ₹1,696.69 crore on a consolidated basis.
The average gross refining margin (GRM) for the 9M FY23 period stood at $20.08 per barrel. This is after factoring the impact of the windfall tax (special additional excise duty) and the Road & Infrastructure tax levied from July 1, 2022. GAIL said that the suppressed marketing margins of certain petroleum products have offset the benefit of higher GRM.
BPCL’s Director (Finance) with additional charge of CMD, Vetsa Ramakrishna Gupta noted that the company recorded high gross refining margins during Q3 FY23 supported by robust international cracks of petroleum products as compared to Q3 FY22.
Operational metrics
In Q3 FY23, the throughput was 9.39 million tonnes (MT) against 9.94 MT in Q3 FY22. Market sales rose 14.89 per cent Y-o-Y to 12.81 MT against 11.15 MT. During April to December 2022, the throughput was 27.90 MT against 25.75 MT in the year-ago period, BPCL said in a statement.
Its market sales rose by 17.33 per cent Y-o-Y to 36.01 million tonnes (MT) in 9M FY23 with ATF accounting for 71.77 per cent followed by diesel (28.50 per cent) and petrol (19.97 per cent).
“We have achieved an average Ethanol blending percentage of 10.17 per cent during April to December 2022. BPCL added 298 new fuel stations in Q3 FY23 (686 in April to December 2022), taking the network strength to 20,729,” it added.
The company owned company operated outlets network increased to 325 with 3 additions in Q3 FY23 (4 additions during 9M FY23). Furthermore, it expanded the FINO financial services to 13,187 fuel stations as of December 2022.
BPCL also added 7 new distributors in Q3 FY23 (24 in 9M FY23), taking the LPG distributor network to 6,235 as of December 2022 and the customer base increased to 9.16 crore for the same period.
The company commissioned 62 CNG stations in Q3FY23 (128 in 9M FY23) taking the total CNG stations to 1,260 as of December 2022.