Cairn India Q1 net falls 24% as oil prices hit a soft patch

Cairn India, the operator of nation's biggest onshore oilfield, today reported a 24 per cent drop in its June quarter net profit due to a slide in international oil prices.
Net profit in April-June at Rs 835 crore, or Rs 8.36 per share, was 24 per cent lower than Rs 1,093 crore, or Rs 18.17 a share, in the same period a year ago, the company said in a statement here.
Turnover fell 41 per cent to Rs 2,627 crore.
Cairn got USD 56 per barrel for oil it sold in the first quarter of the current fiscal, 42 per cent lower than USD 97 a barrel realisation a year ago.

Oil production from its prime Rajasthan block was 6 per cent down at 1,72,224 barrels per day.
Besides softer oil prices, the decline in revenue was due to "increase in the share of Profit Petroleum payable to the government of India. This quarter witnessed a jump from the 30 per cent tranche to 40 per cent" in Rajasthan, the statement said.

EBITDA for the quarter came in at Rs 1,302 crore with a margin of 50 per cent.
EBITDA (Earnings before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation) for the said quarter is up 79 per cent compared with Q4 of 2014-15, which saw an exploration cost write-off of Rs 552 crore.

"EBITDA margins were boosted by lower operating costs which for Rajasthan waterflood case have come down by 10 per cent from the previous fiscal average of USD 5.8 to USD 5.2 per barrel oil equivalent in Q1 FY16 as a result of reduction in well and facility maintenance costs," it said.
Exploration write-off for the quarter stood at Rs 82 crore.
Cairn posted a net profit of Rs 835 crore for the first quarter with a healthy profit margin of 32 per cent.
The company had a cash of Rs 16,467 crore as of June-end.
The stock fell 3 per cent on BSE to close at Rs 162.55 today.