IOC Q4 net profit up 79% at Rs8,781 crore on lower tax outgo

IOC’s tax outgo declined 24.6 per cent from the previous quarter while revenue grew over 9.8 per cent compared with growth in total expenditure, resulting in higher profit. 

Revenue rose 16.3 per cent to Rs1.24 lakh crore, while operating profit rose 40.3 per cent to Rs13,502 crore. Other income declined 13.2 per cent to Rs1,102 crore. Operating margin expanded to 10.9 per cent from 9 per cent.

Indian Oil's fourth-quarter gross refining margin, ie, the difference between what a company earns by processing a barrel of crude into fuel and the reefing cost was not available. 

Sharing the highlights of IndianOil’s performance in FY 2020-21 with the media, IOC chaiman SM Vaidya said that the corporation recorded domestic sales of 72.71 million metric tonnes (MMT) in 2020-21, besides exports of 3.1 MMT. Its nine re-fineries clocked a throughput of 62.4 MMT. The corporation’s pipelines network, now spanning over 15,000 km, reported a throughput of 76 MMT of crude oil and products for the year. The corporation enlarged and diversified its crude oil basket during the year 2020-21 by adding 17 new imported grades to its crude oil basket of 201 grades from over 44 countries

IOC sold 4.77 MMT of gas (RLNG) in 2020-21 against 4.72 MMT in 2019-20, posting 19 per cent growth. Petrochemicals sales in 2020-21 were an all-time high of 2.51 MMT. The corporation’s share of production from eight producing assets where it has participating interest was 3.86 MMToe in 2020-21.

All operating locations of IOC remained functional during the lockdown period, albeit with reduced staffing and all Covid related work protocol in place.

IndianOil commissioned a record 3,000 new retail outlets, including 1,196 Kisan Seva Kendra outlets. With this, its total number of fuel stations have exceeded a total of 32,000. In the LPG business, over 38 lakh new customers were added, and 293 LPG distributorships were commissioned, taking the Indane distributor-ship network to over 12,700. IndianOil also provided 6.68 crore LPG refills to cus-tomers under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana.

The corporation boosted the Hydrogen economy efforts in the country by installing an H-CNG Plant at Delhi for conducting a trial on 50 DTC buses. A Statement of Intent (SoI) was also signed with Greenstat, Norway, for setting up a Centre of Excellence on Hydrogen (CoE-H) to facilitate transfer and sharing of know-how and experience across the Hydrogen value chain, including hydrogen storage and fuel cells. In another significant step towards E-mobility, IOC Phinergy Pvt Ltd, a 50:50 joint venture with Phinergy Ltd of Israel, was incorporated to commercialise Aluminum-Air Battery Technology in India. In 2020-21, IndianOil’s research pursuits yielded 169 patents (69 in India and 100 overseas), taking its total filed patents to 1,294.

Besides commissioning 3,000 new ROs, 251 CNG stations and 525 mobile dispensers were also brought on stream, and 15 compressed biogas stations were operationalised. The Swagat brand of highway retail outlets was re-introduced with upgraded facilities. To promote women empowerment at the field level, 83 all-women crew retail outlets were launched across India. IndianOil also launched new differentiated product offerings for the customers. XP100 - India’s first super-premium high performance 100 octane petrol, was launched in December 2020 and differentiated LPG, XtraTej was launched in September 2020.

As part of a branding strategy, IndianOil relaunched the 5 Kg FTL LPG cylinder as CHHOTU, which is becoming increasingly popular. It has recorded a 50 per cent increase over the corresponding period last year. In another customer-centric initiative, ‘Combo Cylinder facility’ and the ‘Composite Cylinder facility’ was launched to improve ease of living.

IndianOil Aviation maintained its leadership with a market share of 62.8 per cent and expanded its network of Aviation Fuel Stations to 121. In addition to refuelling the Vande Bharat flights, it also supplied fuel to the 40th Indian Scientific Expedition to Antarctica.

SERVO improved its market share and retained its Numero Uno position in the lubricants market. Despite the pandemic, SERVO registered its highest ever growth of 24.1 per cent, with a volume gain of 98 TMT and 100 per cent growth in profit. It also expanded its footprint to Fiji & Turkey and is now available in 32 countries world-wide.

IOC expects all refinery expansion and petrochemical integration projects and other approved CAPEX plans to translate into an investment commitment of close to Rs1 lakh crore in the next five years, which will catapult the corporation into a high growth trajectory.

During FY 2020-21, IOC’a Pipelines Division achieved a liquid throughput of 76 million metric tonnes. Product pipelines achieved a throughput of 31.7 MMT. Crude oil pipelines achieved a throughput of 44.2 MMT. Gas pipelines achieved the high-est ever throughput of 2685 MMSCM, 12 per cent higher than last year.

IndianOil R&D Centre pursued cutting-edge research in both core and sunrise areas, including deployment of indigenous BS-VI technologies, widening the footprint of refining technologies, differentiated fuels and inhouse development of fuel additives. It also initiated a series of steps for promoting carbon capture, plastic neutrality, and biofuels.

IndianOil said it is continuously expanding its gas business vertical. Total natural gas sales, including own consumption during the year, was 4.77 MMT against 4.72 MMT last year. IndianOil’s CGD footprint has also grown, and it is now authorised to operate in 17 geographical areas on a standalone basis, out of which 8 GAs are approved in the 9th round and 9 GAs in the 10th round. The total project cost of the 17 GAs is Rs.13,873 crore.

IOC also achieved highest petrochemical sales of 2.5 MMT in FY 20-21. Petrochemicals sales grew by 20 per cent while polymer sales recorded an increase of 27 per cent. IndianOil’s share of production from its eight producing assets during the year was 38,63,000 metric tonnes of oil equivalent (TMToe), and revenue was around $342.83 million.

IndianOil is developing three natural gas pipelines – Mehsana-Bhatinda, Bhatinda-Jammu-Srinagar and Mallavaram-Bhopal-Bhilwara-Vijaipur – through JVCs.

Besides, IOC is aligning its business objectives with national priorities, with enhanced focus on bio-energy and renewables. Under the ambitious SATAT scheme of MoP&NG on Compressed Bio-Gas (CBG), IndianOil has awarded 1,103 LOIs and convincingly surpassed the target of 900 LOIs. IndianOil has also initiated marketing of CBG from 11 plants at 18 retail outlets spread over five states, with the total sales of CBG in 2020-21 exceeding 900 MT.

A solar PV capacity of 6.23 MW was added during the year, taking the total solar power capacity to 65.05 MW. Wind power capacity remains at 167.6 MW. The total power generation from renewable sources during the year was 329.45 GWh, resulting in emission mitigation of 2,73,400 metric tonnes of carbon diox-ide equivalent (TMTCO2e).