Mumbai: Oil PSU Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) has reported a net profit of Rs 192.7 crore for the quarter ended June 30, as compared to a net loss of Rs 426.5 crore for the same quarter last year.

Helped by a rising rupee, the company's total income (net of excise) rose to 6.5 per cent to Rs 24,303.5 crore for the quarter from Rs 22,819.8 crore for the same quarter a year ago, BPCL said in a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

The group recorded a net profit (after minority interest) of Rs 238.5 crore for the quarter ended June 30, as compared to net loss of Rs 378.2 crore for the same quarter previous year.

"During the same quarter last year, the rupee had depreciated which caused us losses to the tune of Rs 150 crore. In the current June quarter, the appreciation of rupee helped us earn a foreign exchange of Rs 230 crore, which in effect made a difference of Rs 380 crore in the current results. Apart from that, high crude margins contributed to better performance," said SK Joshi, director (finance) of BPCL.

Crude throughput was higher for the period at 5.15 million tonnes, compared with 4.88 million tonnes in the corresponding previous quarter and market sales grew from 5.78 million tonnes the previous period to 6.33 million tonnes for the quarter.

While overall sales grew by 9.52 per cent (7.04 per cent), export sales registered a 0.37 per cent growth for the period compared with 0.39 per cent in the corresponding quarter the previous year.

Gross refining margin (GRM) was $6.5 per barrel against $5.41 per barrel for the same period in 2006 for Mumbai Refinery and $7.97 per barrel compared with $5.98 per barrel for Kochi Refinery.

Shares of Bharat Petroleum, however, fell 2.23 per cent to Rs 310.65 at close on trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange, against the previous close of Rs 317.75.

However, the financial results of the quarter have been adversely affected due to impact on account of high crude oil and product prices and underrecovery on HSD, MS, SKO (PDS) and LPG (domestic).

This has partially been compensated by the upstream oil companies and, accordingly, Rs 963 crore has been accounted during the quarter compared with Rs 1,380 crore in the April-June 2006 quarter, towards discount received for purchase of crude oil, LPG and SKO from ONGC and GAIL.

Total expenditure increased to Rs 23,663.4 crore compared with Rs 22,971.6 crore in the corresponding previous quarter. Interest burden also increased to Rs 124 crore for the first quarter of 2007-08 compared with Rs 90.8 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2006.