BackONGC’s Q4 profit falls 19.5% to Rs3,935 crore
The company wrote off Rs291 crore of exploration expense for drilling wells that did not result in any discovery
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New Delhi: State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd (ONGC) on Thursday reported 19.5% drop in net profit to ₹ 3,935 crore for the quarter ended 31 March, mainly due to higher operating cost and write-off on dry wells drilled.
The net profit of ONGC in the March quarter was lower than ₹ 4,889 crore in the year-ago period, chairman and managing director Dinesh K. Sarraf told reporters here. While the company realized $55.63 for every barrel of oil produced as compared with $44.87 per barrel in the fourth quarter of the previous fiscal, operating cost rose by ₹ 1,278 crore, impacting the profit.
The company wrote off ₹ 291 crore of exploration expense for drilling wells that did not result in any discovery. Besides, revenue from value added products (VAP) was down 35% to ₹ 1,866 crore.
For the full 2014-15 fiscal year, the company wrote off about ₹ 10,000 crore, of which ₹ 2,700 crore was on account of dry wells, Sarraf said. Also, the company had lower production from joint venture fields. Sarraf said the company was exempt from paying any fuel subsidy in the fourth quarter of 2014-15 and will also not be required to pay any in the first quarter of current fiscal.
Turnover was up 1.3% to ₹ 21,683 crore. While it was not required to pay any subsidy in Q4, the subsidy payout in full 2014-15 fiscal was ₹ 36,300 crore that left a ₹ 20,437 crore dent in its profit, he said.
ONGC, which along with Oil India Ltd and GAIL India Ltd meets more than half of the losses retailers incur on selling cooking gas and kerosene at government-controlled rates, had a net profit of ₹ 17,733 crore in 2014-15, down 19.7% over previous year net of ₹ 22,095 crore.
Crude oil production was marginally lower at 6.45 million tonnes in Q4 as opposed to 6.47 million tonnes a year ago. Gas output was down 5.83% to 5.81 billion cubic meters.
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