BPCL net profit falls 24% on LPG losses, lower refinery margins

New Delhi: Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) on Tuesday reported a 24 per cent drop in its March quarter net profit on the back of losses on sale of subsidised domestic cooking gas LPG and lower refining margins.

Standalone net profit of Rs 3,214.06 crore in January-March - the fourth quarter of April 2024 to March 2025 financial year - compared with Rs 4,224.18 crore earnings in the same period a year back, according to a stock exchange filing of the company.

Profit fell 31 per cent quarter-on-quarter when compared with Rs 4,649.20 crore earnings in the October-December 2024 period.

BPCL and other state-owned fuel retailers sold cooking gas LPG at rates lower than cost but were not compensated by the government in 2024-25 fiscal (FY25).

LPG is a subsidised fuel, and the government is supposed to provide subsidies to the three retailers to make up for the difference between the retail selling price and the actual cost of production.

This, however, did not happen in FY25. Earlier this month, the government hiked LPG price by Rs 50 per 14.2-kg cylinder to cover some of the gap between cost and retail price. Domestic cooking gas is still sold at a loss.

BPCL in the filing said it lost Rs 3,217.82 crore on selling domestic LPG at below cost in the January-March (Q4) and Rs 10,446.38 crore in the full FY25.

Alongside raising LPG prices, the government had hiked excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 2 per litre each to raise about Rs 32,000 crore in additional revenue. This additional revenue, Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had on April 7 said could be used to provide LPG subsidy to BPCL and other retailers.

BPCL earned $6.82 on turning every barrel of crude oil into fuel, down from $14.14 per barrel gross refining margin in FY24.

Revenue from operations fell 4 per cent to Rs 1.26 lakh crore in Q4.

For the full fiscal FY25, BPCL reported a net profit halving to Rs 13,275.26 crore on a revenue of Rs 5 lakh crore.

In 2023-24, BPCL had reported highest ever annual profit of Rs 26,673.50 crore after it, as well as other state-owned fuel retailers Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), did not pass the benefit of a reduction in global oil prices to consumers in form of a petrol and diesel price cut. The three firms made handsome margins on two fuels, resulting in bumper profits.

BPCL said its refineries processed 10.58 million tonnes of crude oil in Q4, up from 10.36 million tonnes a year back. In FY25, refinery throughput was 40.51 million tonnes as opposed to 39.93 million tonnes in the previous fiscal.

Q4 EBITDA was up 2.5 per cent at Rs 7,765 crore.

Market sales rose 1.82 per cent to 13.42 million tonnes in Q4 and by 2.66 per cent to 52.40 million tonnes in FY25.

The board of directors of the company announced a final dividend of Rs 5 per equity share. This is in addition to the interim dividend of Rs 5 paid earlier in FY25.