MUMBAI: High refinery margins and inventory gains have helped state-run HPCL to register a 147 per cent jump in its second quarter net profit at Rs 1,735 crore against Rs 701 crore in the same period a year ago. Gross sales increased to Rs 54,153 crore during the September quarter from Rs 47,750 crore last year.
According to Mukesh K Surana, CMD, HPCL, the increase in profit was due to higher crude throughput, better refinery margins, higher domestic market sales and inventory gains against inventory loss compared to last year.
HPCL’s gross refining margin stood at $7.61 per barrel during the quarter against $3.23 per barrel last year. Throughput at both the refineries totalled 4.64 mt compared to 4.04 mt last year. During July-September 2017, the domestic sales of petroleum products increased 4.6 per cent to 8.37 million tonnes with petrol sales rising 7.1 per cent and diesel 4.4 per cent.
Besides, the company had an inventory gain of Rs 792 crore in the quarter as compared to an inventory loss of Rs 550 crore.
Fund inflow
HPCL is investing Rs 20,928 crore Visakh refinery in Andhra and H4,199 crore in Mumbai refinery