MRPL back in black with Rs 298-crore profit in Dec quarter

Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) today returned to black with a net profit of Rs 298 crore in the December quarter on the back of robust refining margins.
MRPL, a subsidiary of Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), had a net loss of Rs 1,894 crore in October-December 2014, the company said in a statement.
The firm earned USD 8.4 on turning every barrel of crude oil into fuel in third quarter of current fiscal as compared to USD 6.74 a barrel gross refining margin in the year-ago period.
"The improvement in GRM is on account of products like pet coke and polypropylene generated out of the new Phase-III secondary units despite marginally lower throughput of 0.04 million tonnes on account of planned shutdown during the starting of third quarter," it said.

MRPL saw its inventory loss decline to Rs 666 crore in October-December from Rs 2,419 crore in third quarter of previous fiscal.
Inventory loss occurs when a company buys crude oil at a particular price but by the time it ships it to India and processes it, its value would have declined because of falling global oil prices.

The drop in oil prices also meant that the company turnover slips to Rs 11,193 crore from Rs 15,833 crore.
"The reduction in gross revenue is mainly due to steep reduction in crude and product prices by around 33 per cent in the reporting quarter compared to previous quarter prices," the statement said.

The refinery processed 3.82 million tonnes of crude oil in the quarter, almost unchanged from 3.86 million tonnes a year ago.
"The deregulation of diesel pricing has opened up opportunities for recommencing the retail business. MRPL has drawn up plans for opening over 100 petrol pumps in the near short term," the statement added.