Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) on Thursday clocked a consolidated net profit of Rs 444 crore for the quarter that ended December 2022 (Q3), down 67.16 per cent from Rs 1,352.99 crore logged in the same period last year.
According to the exchange filing by the company, the revenue from the sale of products in Q3 stood at Rs 1,15,829.87 crore from Rs 1,03,143.24 crore reported in the corresponding quarter a year ago, up 12.30 per cent.
The company reported a standalone net profit of Rs 172.43 crore in the third quarter of the current fiscal, down from Rs 868.86 crore profit at the same time a year ago.
These losses are mainly attributed to lower fuel prices of the state-owned firm compared to International prices. When worldwide oil prices reached a multi-year high last year, HPCL and other state-owned fuel merchants did not change the prices of gasoline and diesel. They thus recorded losses in two consecutive quarters as a result.
"This is before factoring the impact of special additional excise duty (windfall tax) and road and infrastructure cess levied on export of select petroleum products, effective July 1, 2022," HPCL said.
"During this period, due to the suppressed marketing margins on certain petroleum products, the profitability is impacted," the company added.
The company processed 4.83 million tonnes of crude oil in the quarter, up from 4.24 million tonnes in the previous year. It earned $11.40 on turning every barrel of crude oil into fuel during April-December 2022 as against a gross refining margin of $4.50 per barrel. The company also booked a foreign exchange loss of Rs 1,951.64 crore from April to December as compared to a gain of Rs 183.01 crore a year ago.
The company said the government approved a one-time grant of Rs 5,617 crore to compensate under-recoveries incurred by the holding company on the sale of domestic LPG during the financial year 2021-22 and the current period, which has been duly recognised in the quarter ended September 2022 and nine months ended December 2022.