IOC posted a net loss of Rs 54.23 crore (Rs 532.3 million) in April-June 2005 as opposed to a net profit of Rs 1,472.17 crore (Rs 14,72 billion) in the same period last year, mainly due to Rs 3,194.52 crore (Rs 31.94 billion) lost on selling petrol, diesel, LPG and kerosene below cost, company chairman S Behuria said.
After last month's Rs 2.50 per litre increase in petrol and Rs 2 a litre hike in diesel prices, the company earned a revenue of Rs 1,800 crore (Rs 18 billion) in July.
IOC's subsidiary IBP Co Ltd posted a net loss of Rs 233.97 crore (Rs 2.33 billion) this fiscal as against Rs 8.65 crore (Rs 86.5 billion) loss in April-June quarter last year.
"Input cost (crude oil price) has further gone up and there is no respite on retail pricing front. Obviously it will have an impact on our projects. We cannot sustain operations if we are not able to generate investable surpluses," he said.
The Rs 3,194.52 crore (Rs 31.94 billion) under-realisation on petrol, diesel, LPG and kerosene was after Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and GAIL chipping in Rs 1,674.67 crore (Rs 16.74 billion) subsidy, without which IOC losses would have been close to Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion).
"We have Rs 7,500 crore (Rs 75 billion) of ongoing projects and have planned investments of Rs 35,000 crore (Rs 350 billion) over the next five years as part of our corporate plan to become a $60 billion company.
With these kind of losses, obviously it is not possible to fund them and we will be forced to re-consider some of them," Behuria said.
Behuria said petrol is currently being sold at Rs 3.63 a litre below the cost, while diesel was under-priced by Rs 4.15 a litre. LPG is being sold at a loss of Rs 92 per cylinder and the company was losing Rs 11 on sale of every litre of kerosene.
"Our borrowings since March has risen by Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion) to Rs 19,000 crore (Rs 190 billion)," IOC director (finance) S V Narasimhan said.
Behuria said IOC's sales turnover grew 19 per cent to Rs 42,393.45 crore (Rs 423.93 billion) in April-June quarter this year as against Rs 35,627.09 crore (Rs 356.27 billion) turnover in the same period last year.
"Gross refinery margins were marginally lower at $6.16 a barrel compared to $6.87 per barrel last year," he said.
IOC sold 11.85 million tonnes of petroleum products in the domestic market, besides exporting 0.55 million tonnes in the first quarter of 2005-06. Its seven refineries together achieved a throughput of 9.18 million tonnes and the pipelines network transported 11.13 million tones of crude oil and products.
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