BPCL jumps red to green

Inventory losses and lower Gross Refining Margin (GRM) pushed BPCL into a Rs.1819 crore consolidated net loss for Q4FY20. Kit had reported a profit of Rs.2051 crore in Q3. Its revenue from operations fell 8% (QoQ) to Rs.68,998 crore in Q4.

The company stated that changes in inventories of finished goods, stock-in-trade and work-in-progress came in negative at Rs.(3,036.42) crore during the quarter against Rs.3,646.4 crore in previous quarter, following steep correction in global oil prices. It reported an inventory loss of Rs.1081 crore as exceptional loss on account of fall in crude prices.

Its GRM, which is the profit makes on turning every barrel of crude into a finished product fell from $4.58/barrel to $2.50/barrel (YoY).

BPCL's crude throughput declined 0.23% (QoQ) to 8.39 million metric tonnes. More ominous was its warning that it is yet to feel the full impact of the lockdown, especially months of April and May 2020. In April, the company saw a 55% drop in demand while in May, sales were down 30%.  The only silver lining – capacity utilization is now up at 85% starting June.

And it is this aspect which the market has focused on – the future and not the lockdown impact. The stock price, which had closed yesterday at Rs.349.05, opened in the red at Rs.337.65 but from there, it zoomed up to an intraday high at Rs.359.40 and is now hovering almost 2.5% higher at Rs.357 levels.