ONGCs market cap at record Rs 55,000 crore

Praveen Chandran
24 September 2002

Mumbai: The market capitalisation of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) touched an all-time high of Rs 55,000 crore during the first quarter of the current financial year, the highest among all Indian corporates. It makes the corporation the most valued company in the country.

ONGC also posted a net profit of Rs 6,198 crore in 2001-02 on an administered crude price of $16 a barrel. Provisionally, the company started charging $22 a barrel from this year, due to which the net profit jumped up by 34 per cent to Rs 1,981 crore in the first quarter of 2002-03.

ONGC said during 2001-02, the company paid Rs 3,100 crore as corporate tax, which is less by 20.9 per cent as compared to 2001. An amount of Rs 238 crore was paid as interest, a reduction of 40.0 per cent as compared to last year.

ONGC also extended an interest-free loan of Rs 2,113.40 crore to ONGC Videsh Ltd, a subsidiary. Of this, Rs 1,963 crore was allotted to Sakhalin Project. Currently, ONGC is a near zero-debt company with all forex outstanding loans prepaid in May-June 2002.

The turnover during the first quarter of 2002-03 was Rs 7616.78 crore, up by 31 per cent. The net profit is Rs 1,980.80 crore, up by 34 per cent, while the earning per share is Rs 13.9, up by 34 per cent.

ONGC is negotiating the price of crude oil with refiners, who were getting an artificially low administered price until 1 April 2002, when the dismantling of the administered price mechanism took place.