HPCL shares jump 5% as PSU reports strong Q3 numbers; 5 key things you need to know

The PSU on Thursday reported more than tripling of its December quarter net profit as marketing margins soared.

Consolidated net profit stood at ₹2,543.65 crore in October-December 2024—the third quarter of the April 2024 to March 2025 fiscal year (FY25)—compared with ₹712.84 crore earnings in the same period a year back, according to a stock exchange filing of the company.

Profit was also up quarter-on-quarter compared with ₹142.67 crore earnings in July-September 2024.

• Pre-tax earnings from the downstream fuel retailing business jumped to ₹4,566.07 crore in the third quarter from ₹ 981.02 crore a year back and ₹ 1,285.96 crore in the preceding quarter.

This is because HPCL and other state-owned fuel retailers—Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOC) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL)—continued to keep retail selling prices of petrol and diesel on freeze despite a fall in benchmark international oil prices during the reference period.

The three firms had last revised petrol and diesel prices in mid-March 2024 when they reduced rates by ₹2 per litre ahead of the general elections last year. The basket of crude oil that India imports hovered around USD 85 per barrel at that time. Rates averaged less than USD 74 in the October-December quarter.

The rate freeze has often been justified because the oil companies need to recover losses they make when prices of crude oil, which is refined to make fuels like petrol and diesel, rise.

• Income from operations was almost unchanged at ₹1.18 lakh crore, according to the HPCL filing.

• The PSU reported a profit despite the firm booking an under-recovery of about ₹3,100 crore on the sale of domestic cooking gas LPG at the government-controlled price. This under-recovery is to be made good by the government in the form of subsidy support, but so far no provision has been made during the current fiscal year.

• For the first nine months of the current fiscal, HPCL had an under-recovery of ₹7,598.93 crore on LPG.

• The company processed 6.47 million tonnes of crude oil in October-December, up from 5.34 million tonnes a year back. It sold 12.32 million tonnes of fuel in the quarter, up from 11.36 million tonnes last year.