State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) on Friday reported a 6.2 per cent drop in March quarter net profit at Rs4,340 crore from Rs4,625 crore net profit in the same period a year ago.
The company said that the drop was despite the ONGC’s net price realisation for crude
oil produced from nominated fields rising 57 per cent to $54.91 a barrel and also from joint venture fields by 68 per cent to $48.72 a barrel. “We set out Rs 2,444 crore to clear royalty payments to Gujarat and Assam as had been ordered by the Supreme Court,” ONGC Director (Finance) AK Srinivasan said.
The royalty payment was due after the Government agreed with the contention of Gujarat and Assam that the state-owned company should pay royalty on gross price for crude and not the net price it realised after paying for fuel subsidies.
Also, the company provisioned Rs1,944 crore towards ensuing pay revision for employees. “But for the royalty payments, our net profit would have been higher by Rs1,600 crore,” he said.
“Revenues were up 33.7 per cent to Rs21,714 crore in the fourth quarter of 2016-17,” a company statement said. Also, the company lost Rs 4,000 crore in revenue on natural gas price dipping to $2.5 per million British thermal unit from $3.82 per mmBtu in Q4 of 2015-16 fiscal.
For the full fiscal, the company reported a 10.9 per cent rise in net profit to Rs17,900 crore on flat revenue of Rs77,907 crore. Net realisation on crude oil produced from nominated fields was up 6.6 per cent at $50.27 per barrel and that from joint venture fields by 4 per cent at $44.09 a barrel.