Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) on Tuesday reported a 22 per cent drop in its September quarter net profit due to shutdowns in its refineries and lower inventory gains.

Net profit of ₹1,923.51 crore in July-September compared with ₹2,477.45 crore net earning a year back, according to a company's filing to stock exchanges.

Later talking to reporters on the financial performance, HPCL chairman and managing director M K Surana said the company had taken a shutdown at its refinery in Mumbai to complete expansion of capacity to 9.5 million tonnes per annum from 7.5 million tonnes. Also, one of the three crude processing units at its Vizag refinery too was shut because of a fire.

These shutdowns led to the company turning 2.53 million tonnes of crude oil into fuel in the quarter as against 4.06 million tonnes crude throughput in the same period last year.

HPCL earned $2.44 on turning every barrel of crude oil into fuel in the quarter as compared to a gross refining margin of $5.11 a barrel in the corresponding previous period.

The GRM though helped by better product cracks was impacted due to higher fuel and loss components in view of shutdown, startup and stabilization activities at both the refineries, he said adding GRM was also impacted due to higher crude cost.

Also, the firm had a lower inventory gain of Rs ₹1,088 crore, he said.

"Mumbai refinery completed one of the most complex revamp and hook up jobs as a part of the refinery expansion project in this quarter for which the unit had taken a shutdown since April 2021. Mumbai Refinery expansion project jobs are completed," he said.

"The CDU-III unit of Visakh refinery which had a fire incident in May 2021 was restarted after completing necessary inspection and repair activities." While Visakh refinery is now operating at its full capacity, the Mumbai unit is under stabilisation and is currently operating at 80 per cent of the new capacity.

Revenue rose to ₹87,310.62 crore from ₹61,340.30 crore mostly due to the rise in oil prices.

Petroleum products sales

Domestic sales of petroleum products increased 8 per cent to 8.79 million tonnes from 8.10 million tonnes in July-September 2020.

"The major petroleum product has shown growth, with the sale of ATF grew by 63%, petrol by 23%, diesel by 15% and LPG by 4%," he said.

Surana said HPCL commissioned 440 new petrol pumps, taking the total retail outlet network to 19,216. The firm also commissioned 11 new LPG distributorships during the quarter taking the total to 6,208.

During the quarter, HPCL commissioned 517 solar facilities at its retail outlets, taking the total number to 5,192 ROs with solar facilities.

To ensure the availability of alternate fuels and offering more choices to customers, CNG facilities were commissioned at 135 retail outlets, taking the total number of petrol pumps with CNG facilities to 809.

As of September 2021, EV charging facilities were provided at 327 HPCL retail outlets, he added.

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