Oil India Q1 Profit Down 9% at Rs 775 Cr

New Delhi: State-owned Oil India Ltd (OIL) on Wednesday reported a 9 per cent drop in June quarter net profit, on higher dry well write-off and provisioning for expenses.

Net profit in the quarter ended June 2015 fell to Rs 775.42 crore, or Rs 12.90 per share, from Rs 851.87 crore, or Rs 14.17 a share, in the quarter ended June 2014, OIL chairman U P Singh said.

The decline was primarily because of other expenses rising to Rs 574 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 391 crore in the year-ago period.

This included a rise in dry well expense from Rs 9 crore to Rs 57 crore and provisioning for unfinished work commitments rising to Rs 128.31 crore from Rs 40.57 crore.

The dip was despite the firm's fuel subsidy burden declining to Rs 167.43 crore from Rs 1,846.55 crore in the first quarter of the previous fiscal year, he said.

OIL got a gross price of $61.85 per barrel on sale of crude oil and after accounting for fuel subsidy discounts, the net realisation was $57.42 a barrel. This was better than net realisation of $52.35 per barrel in April-June last year after paying $56 in subsidy discounts.

Crude oil production was almost flat at 0.84 million tonnes, so was natural gas at 0.642 billion cubic meters.

Mr Singh said there was a foreign exchange gain of Rs 167 crore.

Turnover rose to Rs 3,159.87 crore as against Rs 2,931.52 crore a year ago.

Shares in Oil India, on Wednesday, ended 0.52 per cent lower at Rs 449.05 apiece on the BSE.