Feb 5 (Reuters) - Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the country's top refiner, reported a more than four-fold jump in third-quarter profit on Thursday, boosted by stronger refining margins as crude prices dropped.
The state-owned firm's standalone net profit rose to 121.26 billion rupees ($1.34 billion) for the quarter ended December 31, from 28.74 billion rupees a year earlier.
IOC's April-December gross refining margin - the profit from making refined products from one barrel of oil - improved to $8.41 per barrel from $3.69 reported a year ago.
Revenue from operations rose 7% to 2.32 trillion rupees.
For further results highlights, click here.
KEY CONTEXT
Global brent crude oil prices - used by refiners as a raw material - dropped more than 9% during the October-December quarter, which helped push the margins.
Fuel consumption in India, the world's third-largest consumer and importer of oil, hit a record high in December, after hitting a six-month peak in November.
Fuel consumption rose 5.5% and 5.3% year-on-year in November and December, respectively, after a 0.4% drop in October, according to data from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC).
PEER COMPARISON
|
Valuation (next 12 months) |
Estimates (next 12 months) |
Analysts' sentiment |
|||||||
|
RIC |
PE |
EV/EBITDA |
Revenue growth (%) |
Profit growth (%) |
Mean rating* |
No. of analysts |
Stock to price target** |
Div yield (%) |
|
|
Indian Oil Corporation |
(IOC.NS) |
9.18 |
6.43 |
2.33 |
5.29 |
Buy |
20 |
1.00 |
3.76 |
|
Hindustan Petroleum Corp |
(HPCL.NS) |
6.85 |
5.71 |
-1.52 |
-1.75 |
Buy |
17 |
0.89 |
2.23 |
|
Bharat Petroleum Corporation |
(BPCL.NS) |
8.11 |
5.97 |
1.53 |
-10.83 |
Buy |
22 |
0.91 |
5.88 |
|
Reliance Industries |
(RELI.NS) |
22.34 |
11.08 |
7.44 |
8.73 |
Buy |
34 |
0.85 |
0.38 |
* 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
OCTOBER-DECEMBER STOCK PERFORMANCE
-- All data from LSEG
-- $1 = 90.1850 Indian rupees
Reporting by Anuran Sadhu in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich
Source: Reuters