India's Bharat Petroleum Q3 profit beats view on strong refining, marketing margins

BENGALURU (Reuters) - Indian state-run oil marketing company Bharat Petroleum Corporation reported a 73% rise in quarterly profit on Monday, helped by strong refining and marketing margins.

The company's standalone net profit rose to 33.93 billion rupees ($408.24 million) in the three months ended Dec. 31, from 19.60 billion rupees a year earlier.

Analysts, on average, expected the profit to jump to 23.14 billion rupees.

The company's average gross refining margin was $13.3 per barrel in the December quarter, above estimates of $10.2 per barrel, Swarnendu Bhushan, co-head of research at Prabhudas Lilladher, said.

Its marketing margin stood at 3.5 rupees per litre, Bhushan added.

Stronger crude oil prices had dampened the marketing margin and hit earnings last year. Crude oil prices have eased by one-fourth from their high in the December 2022-quarter.

Bharat Petroleum's throughput, which is the amount of crude processed, rose to 9.86 million tonnes (MMT) from 9.39 MMT a year ago. Market sales grew 0.86% to 12.92 MMT in the quarter.

Revenue from operations was little changed at 1.3 trillion rupees, while expenses fell 4.5%.

Shares of Bharat Petroleum ended 3.9% higher at 492.80 rupees after the results.

Its state-run peer Indian Oil Corp has also reported a quarterly profit jump on inventory gains and higher marketing margins.

($1 = 83.1130 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Sethuraman NR in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)