Hpcl Bottomline Up 14.5 Per Cent To Rs 701 Crore

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), the second largest oil refinery and distributing company in the country, has posted 14.52 per cent increase in its net profit at Rs 701 crore for the year ended March 1998 compared to Rs 612.22 crore in the previous year. The board has recommended a dividend of 50 per cent for the period.

The corporation's net sales stood at Rs 14,382 crore against Rs 13,941.45 crore in 1996-97. Other income has gone up to Rs 334.62 crore, while total expenditure stood at Rs 13,314 crore. Depreciation stood at Rs 390 crore and tax outgo was Rs 226.8 crore. The company's paid-up equity has gone up to Rs 221.44 crore after the conversion of warrants into equity shares. The government holding in the company has dropped to about 51 per cent ruling out dilution in the company's capital in the near future.

The earning per share stood at Rs 32.19 for 1997-98 against Rs 29.31 in the previous year. Reserves during the period rose to Rs 4,090.96 crore from Rs 3,084.12 crore in 1996-97.

HPCL recently got government clearance to foray into exploration and production. The corporation has already roped in financial institutions to form a joint venture company for exploration.. It is presently expanding refinery capacity at Vishakapatnam from 4.5 to 7.5 million tonne per annum. It recently re-commissioned this refinery after the blast at the plant sometime in September 1997.

Besides, the corporation is also setting up the Punjab refinery in the joint sector with Saudi Aramco. It plans to extend the refinery capacity from 6 million tonne to 9 million tonne per annum and is scheduled for commissioning by 2002 AD.

However, it has pushed the west coast refinery at Guhagarh in Maharashtra, to the Tenth Five Year Plan. The expansion projects will take the corporation's total refining capacity from 13 million tonne per annum to 34 million tonne per annum.