New Delhi:
Oil India Ltd, the nation’s second largest state oil and gas producer, logged second quarterly loss in its history in April-June after crude oil prices slumped to lower than cost of production.
OIL had a net loss of Rs 248.61 crore in first quarter of 2020-21 fiscal as compared to a net profit of Rs 624.80 crore in the same period of the previous financial year.
“This is the second quarterly loss in OIL history. We had a quarterly loss in 2018-19 fiscal,” OIL Director-Finance Harish Madhav said on Saturday.
The loss was primarily due to price realised for oil the company produced dropped to $30.43 per barrel in the June quarter as compared to $66.33 a barrel price realised a year back, he said.
“Our cost of production is around $32-33 per barrel and a drop in price was the primary reason for the loss in Q1,” he said.
OIL produced 0.75 million tonnes of crude oil in April-June, down marginally from 0.81 million tonnes a year back. Natural gas output too was marginally lower at 0.68 billion cubic metres (bcm) from 0.71 bcm in Q1 2019-20.
He said natural gas price realisation during Q1 FY21 reduced to $2.39 per metric million British thermal unit (mmBtu) from $3.23 in the previous quarter.
OIL’s cost of production for natural gas is around $2.3 per mmBtu.
“Gas price realisation was fine but it was the substantial drop in oil prices that resulted in loss in Q1,” he said.
Turnover in April-June reduced to Rs 1,874.48 crore from Rs 3,496.10 crore in the same period last year.
