(Reuters) -India’s state-run refiner Bharat Petroleum Corp (BPCL) reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit, helped by a dip in costs and improved fuel demand.
Standalone net profit doubled to 61.24 billion rupees ($700.4 million) for the quarter ended June 30.
Analysts, on average, were expecting a profit of 57.18 billion rupees, as per data compiled by LSEG.
Revenue from operations rose 1.2% to 1.30 trillion rupees. Its expenses fell about 2% to 1.22 trillion rupees, with an 8.8% decline in the cost of materials consumed.
For further earnings highlights
KEY CONTEXT
India, the world’s third-largest oil importer and consumer, witnessed an uptick in fuel demand for two of the three months between April and June, with gasoline and aviation fuel leading the way.
Global Brent crude oil prices dropped 9.5% in the April-June quarter on higher supply and tariff-related uncertainty.
BPCL, India’s third-largest oil refiner by capacity, said its average gross refining margin fell to $4.88 per barrel for the quarter ended June 30 from $7.86 per barrel a year ago.
Peer Hindustan Petroleum Corp posted a jump in quarterly profit, earlier this month, on lower expenses.
PEER COMPARISON
Valuation (next 12 Estimates (next 12 Analysts’ sentiment
months) months)
RIC PE EV/EBITDA Revenue Profit Mean No. of Stock to Div
growth (%) growth (%) rating* analyst price yield
s target** (%)
Bharat Petroleum 9.64 6.67 -2.88 10.43 Buy 21 0.89 3.13
Corporation
Hindustan Petroleum 7.64 6.73 -3.12 38.36 Buy 14 0.89 2.56
Corp
Indian Oil 9.05 6.85 -2.32 43.00 Buy 20 0.88 2.14
Corporation
Reliance Industries 21.91 10.87 5.60 14.50 Buy 31 0.84 0.40
* The mean of analyst ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell
** The ratio of the stock’s last close to analysts’ mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT
APRIL-JUNE STOCK PERFORMANCE
— All data from LSEG
— $1 = 87.4380 Indian rupees
(Reporting by Manvi Pant and Anuran Sadhu; Editing by Eileen Soreng)
