ONGC Videsh’s Q2 profit rises 15% to Rs280 crore on higher production
ONGC Videsh's profit stood at Rs280 crore in the September quarter, up 15% from Rs243 crore in the year-ago period, on the back of higher oil and gas production
New Delhi: ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC), on Wednesday reported a 15% rise in its half yearly net profit on the back of higher oil and gas production.
Consolidated net profit at Rs280 crore in April-September was higher than Rs243 crore net profit in the same period of the previous fiscal, the company said in a statement. OVL is unlisted company and is not required by law to provide quarterly earning statement.
Standalone net profit however fell 72.3% to Rs134 crore “mainly due to forex movements and provisioning against exploratory carry finance," the company said without providing details. Oil production in the first half of current fiscal rose 33.6% to 4.815 million tonnes after OVL got higher volumes from Russia’s Vankor field where it increased its stake to 26%.
Gas output rose 17.6% to 2.2 billion cubic meters. The production in first half of the fiscal was higher “mainly due to acquisition of additional 11 per cent stake in Vankorneft project in Russia in October 2016." The firm previously held 15% stake in the Russia’s second-biggest oil producing field.
OVL said it had raised finances by way of bridge loan to acquire 11% shares in Vankor in October 2016. “The bridge loan has been successfully replaced in April 2017 with USD 500 million and 38 billion Japanese Yen syndicated term loan facilities at competitive prices from reputed international banks," it added.
OVL in 2016 bought 15% stake in Vankor from Russian national oil firm Rosneft for $1.268 billion. It bought an additional 11% for $930 million. Vankor is Russia’s second largest field by production and accounts for 4% of Russian production.
The daily output from the field is around 400,000 barrels per day of crude oil (bopd) on an average and OVL’s share of daily oil production from Vankor is about 104,000bopd.
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