Oil India reports its 2nd-ever quarterly loss at ₹249 crore

New Delhi: Oil India Ltd, the nation's second largest state oil and gas producer, logged second quarterly loss in its history in April-June after crude oil prices slumped to lower than cost of production.

OIL had a net loss of ₹248.61 crore in first quarter of 2020-21 fiscal as compared to a net profit of ₹624.80 crore in the same period of the previous financial year.

"This is the second quarterly loss in OIL history. We had a quarterly loss in 2018-19 fiscal," OIL Director-Finance Harish Madhav said on Saturday.

The loss was primarily due to price realised for oil the company produced dropped to USD 30.43 per barrel in the June quarter as compared to USD 66.33 a barrel price realised a year back, he said.

"Our cost of production is around USD 32-33 per barrel and a drop in price was the primary reason for the loss in Q1," he said.

OIL produced 0.75 million tonnes of crude oil in April-June, down marginally from 0.81 million tonnes a year back. Natural gas output too was marginally lower at 0.68 billion cubic metres (bcm) from 0.71 bcm in Q1 2019-20.

He said natural gas price realisation during Q1 FY21 reduced to USD 2.39 per metric million British thermal unit (mmBtu) from USD 3.23 in the previous quarter. 

OIL's cost of production for natural gas is around USD 2.3 per mmBtu.

"Gas price realisation was fine but it was the substantial drop in oil prices that resulted in loss in Q1," he said.

Turnover in April-June reduced to ₹1,874.48 crore from ₹3,496.10 crore in the same period last year.