India's Hindustan Petroleum records £13.14 billion in Q1

India’s state run Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) has recorded Profit After Tax (PAT) of 13.14 billion GBP during April-June of financial year 2018-19 as against 1.18 billion GBP recorded during the same quarter last year.

Earnings per share also increased to 0.13 against 0.069 per share in previous year corresponding quarter, said company in a press release on Wednesday (8).

Revenue for the quarter was 566.02 billion GBP as compared to revenue of 464.86 billion GBP during the first quarter of the previous year.

The increase in profit is primarily because of higher refining margins due to inventory gains and also due to increased refining throughput and sales volume as compared to the corresponding period of previous year.

In this quarter ended in June, though crude prices have increased significantly (for HPCL basket from 38.67 GBP per barrel to 56.68 GBP per barrel) leading to Inventory gains which improved gross refinery margins, a part of it was offset by lower cracks specially in LPG and Bitumen and higher value of fuel in refineries.

The refineries at Mumbai and Vizag processed 9040 million pounds of crude oil during April-June 2018 as against 8980 million pounds during April-June 2017. The combined GRM during the quarter increased to 5.55 GBP per barrel as compared to 4.55 GBP per barrel during the corresponding previous period.

During April-June 2018, HPCL achieved the highest ever quarterly domestic sales volume of 19260 million pounds with a growth of 5 per cent over historical. The sales of petrol increased by 6.9 per cent, high speed diesel by 2.7 per cent, LPG by 11.3 per cent, aviation turbine fuel by 9.9 per cent, and lubes by 22.9 per cent as compared to the first quarter of 2017-18.

Pipeline throughput increased to 10900 Pounds with an impressive growth of 17 per cent over corresponding previous quarter April-June,2017.

HPCL enhanced the Infrastructure capabilities by completion of various projects during the quarter including mounded storage at Mysuru in Southern India, LPG bottling plant, revamp of facilities at Jatni and Chakan LPG bottling plants, resitement of tank wagon decantation facilities at Vizag black oil terminal.

HPCL commissioned 65 new retail outlets during Q1 of 2018-19 taking the total retail outlet network to 15,127 as of June 2018. Facilities for digital transactions are available at over 97 per cent of the total retail outlet network as of June 2018.

For the financial year 2018-19, HPCL has planned to invest over 65.22 million GBP in various projects across refineries and petrochemicals, marketing, pipelines and natural gas.