Riding on the oil price recovery, public sector crude oil and natural gas explorer Oil India Ltd has reported a ₹866.50-crore net profit for the fourth quarter of the financial year 2017-2018 against ₹19.31 crore profit in the corresponding period of the financial year 2016-2017.

The vast difference in profit is because of a one-time payment of differential royalty of ₹1151.73 crore on crude oil for the February 2014 to March 2016 period. This royalty was paid as per a government directive in the fourth quarter of the financial year 2016-2017.

Oil India’s board has also proposed a final dividend of ₹1 per share for the financial year 2017-2018 on a post bonus equity share capital. This is in addition to an interim dividend of ₹14 per share paid earlier on pre-bonus equity share capital.

During the fourth quarter of the financial year 2017-2018, the per barrel realisation (price at which Oil India sold the crude it discovered) rose to $64.93 a barrel. This was $52.50 a barrel in the same quarter of the financial year 2016-2017.

This was reflected in the total income for the quarter under consideration that stood at ₹3784.91 crore. In the corresponding quarter of financial year 2016-2017, total income was ₹ 3308.98 crore.

Profit after tax for the full year 2017-2018 stood at ₹2,667.93 crore compared to a PAT of ₹1548.68 crore during 2016-2017. During the fiscal, crude oil production registered a growth of 3.57 per cent in the fiscal 2017-2018 to 3.394 mt compared to 3.277 mt during fiscal 2016-2017.

But all is not rosy for the company. In a statement to the exchanges, the company said that it has received show cause-cum-demand notices from the Directorate General of Goods and Service Tax Intelligence for ₹257.13 crore towards service tax on royalty for Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Rajasthan from March 2016 to June 2017.

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