Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited (CPCL), a group company of IndianOil, has rallied back to profitability with a net profit of Rs. 603.22 crore in the year ended March 31, 2010, against a loss of Rs. 397.28 crore in the previous year.
Gross sales stood at Rs. 29,183.84 crore against Rs. 36,489.67 crore in the previous year. The company has recommended a dividend of Rs. 12 per share of Rs. 10 each against nil in the previous year.
Addressing presspersons here on Tuesday, B. M. Bansal, Chairman of IndianOil group and a director of CPCL, said the company achieved a healthy gross refining margin of $4.75 per barrel, net of under recoveries, against $1.22 in the previous year. The loss in 2008-09 was mainly due to factors such as volatility in crude prices and global meltdown.
The processing of high-cost crude in a falling market also contributed to the negative performance in 2008-09, he said. CPCL has emerged successfully now after the implementation of its one million tonne expansion of its capacity at Manali refinery. Mr. Bansal said in order to produce fuels compliant with Bharat Stage III and IV norms, Indian refineries have made massive investments in quality improvement projects such as FCC gasoline de-sulphurisation and isomerisation for petro and diesel hydro-treater. “While most refineries have completed and commissioned the fuel up-gradation projects for both petrol and diesel, a few are in the final stages of completion”, he said.
K. Balachandran, Managing Director, said CPCL achieved a crude throughput of 10.06 million tonnes.
The Manali Refinery achieved the highest ever distillate yield of 69.2 per cent, he said. The Chennai-Tiruchi-Madurai pipeline has crossed its design capacity of 1.8 million tonnes per annum in March for the first time since commissioning.
The Chennai-Bangalore pipeline was also commissioned, he said. During the next five years the company has chalked out plans for major projects involving an outlay of Rs.10,000 crore. CPCL is augmenting capacity at its refinery III crude unit at Manali to four million tonnes from three million tonnes at a cost of Rs. 200 crore.
For meeting auto fuel quality specification of Euro III / Euro IV norms, CPCL is implementing Euro IV projects at a total investment of Rs. 2,615 crore.
The company is vigorously pursuing the proposal for laying a new 42 inch crude oil pipeline from Chennai Port to Manali Refinery.
