National: The OIL (Oil India Ltd), records the second quarterly loss in its history in April-June. This is due to the slump of crude oil prices lower than the cost of production. Oil India Ltd. is one of the nation’s second-largest state oil and gas producer.
Oil India Limited had a net loss of Rs 248.61 Crore in the first quarter of 2020-21 fiscal as compared to a net profit of Rs 624.80 Crore in the same period of the previous financial year.
This is the second quarterly loss in OIL history. Earlier the quarterly loss was in 2018-19 fiscal.
The loss was primarily due to price realized 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 realized a year back, he said.
The cost of production is around USD 32-33 per barrel. And the drop in price was the primary reason for the loss in Q1.
OIL produced 0.75 million tons of crude oil in April-June. Which is down marginally from 0.81 million tons a year back. Natural gas output too was marginally lower at 0.68 billion cubic meters (bcm) from 0.71 bcm in Q1 2019-20.
The natural gas price realization during Q1 FY21 reduced to USD 2.39 per metric million British thermal units (mmBtu) from USD 3.23 in the previous quarter. OIL’s cost of production for natural gas is around USD 2.3 per mmBtu.
The gas price realization was fine but it was the substantial drop in oil prices that resulted in a loss in Q1. The turnover in April-June reduced to Rs 1,874.48 crore from Rs 3,496.10 crore in the same period last year.