ONGC's Q1 net soars 58% over last year

State-run explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) on Thursday declared a 58.15 per cent jump in net profit for the first quarter ending in June at Rs 6,143.88 crore on the back of higher crude prices and improved performance.

The country's biggest hydrocarbons producer said in a statement here that it had posted a net profit of Rs 3,884.73 crore in the corresponding quarter of last year.

The company's revenue from operations during the quarter in consideration increased to Rs 27,212.83 crore, which was a 42.7 per cent increase over the Rs 19,073.54 crore revenue in the same quarter of the last fiscal, it said.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), or operating income, during the April-June quarter rose 58.32 per cent to Rs 13,893 crore, as compared to Rs 8,775 crore earned in the same period last year.

Sequentially, ONGC's operating profit increased 29.43 percent to Rs 14,732 crore while margin rose to 54.14 percent, from 47.49 percent in the previous quarter.

However, sequential net profit had a much lower growth of 4 per cent, while revenue increased by a lesser 13.5 percent over the previous quarter.

Sequential profit took a hit from much lower other income at Rs 650 crore which fell 82.6 per cent as compared to the previous quarter when ONGC had received dividends from the state-run refiners Hindustan Petroleum and Indian Oil.

ONGC also paid 49 per cent more tax during the quarter at Rs 3,463 crore.

The company said its natural gas production during the quarter in review increased by 3.4 per cent.

The ONGC stock closed on Thursday at Rs 166.00 a share, down 70 paise, or by 0.42 per cent, on its previous close on the BSE.

--IANS

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