Bharat Petroleum Q3 profit falls 31% on stagnant pump prices

Indian oil marketing company OMC Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd reported a 31% fall in its quarterly profit on Monday, hurt by losses due to stagnant pump prices.

The company's net profit dropped to 19.60 billion rupees $240.6 million in the third quarter of December 31, from 28.28 billion rupees a year earlier.

Retail prices that have remained static since April, 2022 hurt the marketing under-recovery of oil marketing companies.

Stagnant retail prices hurt OMCs' margins as they would not be able to recover costs for importing and refining the raw material, as well as high crude oil prices.

In the quarter, Bharat Petroleum's market sales increased to 12.81 million metric ton MMT, a rise from 11.15 MMT a year ago, indicating the company's profit was hurt as it sold more fuel.

The refiner saw its nine month gross refining margins rise to $20.08 per barrel from $6.78 in the same period a year ago.

In the last quarter, Bharat Petroleum's revenue grew 13.7% to 1.33 trillion rupees.