New Delhi, Jan. 30: The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has clocked an 11 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 3,888 crore for the third quarter ended December against Rs 3,493 crore in the same quarter last fiscal. Sales went up by 3 per cent to Rs 12,548 crore.

ONGC has paid Rs 2,843 crore to oil marketing companies ? Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum ? as part of the subsidy bill during the quarter. The corporation had paid a subsidy of Rs 1,332 crore in the same period last year.

Crude output during the quarter dropped to 6.37 million tonnes from 7.10 million tonnes in the same period last year due to production disruption at Mumbai High following the blaze at the BNH platform.

Net profit for the first nine months stood at Rs 11,345 crore, up 24 per cent from Rs 9,185 crore in the same period last year.

Earnings per share of the company has gone up to Rs 79.56 from Rs 64.42 per share.

Meanwhile, chairman Subir Raha has rubbished US criticism of the Syrian deal saying the $573-million paid for a stake in Al-Furat fields was not foreign direct investment in that country but was paid to a Canadian firm for the equity.

Referring to US ambassador to India David Mulford’s protest with the petroleum ministry on the deal, Raha said, “We are only paying Petro-Canada for the acquisition and not making any FDI. The Canadian firm had already invested in Syria and we are taking over their stake.”

ONGC and China National Petroleum Corporation had jointly won the bid to acquire about 37 per cent stake in the Syrian oilfields from Petro-Canada for 484 million euro.

Mulford had said the US strongly opposed such investments in Syrian resources as the country may exploit news of any FDI as evidence that it was not isolated and therefore not comply with UN resolutions.

“We shall comply with UN sanctions completely and totally,” Raha said, emphasising ONGC had not defied any international sanctions anywhere.

MRPL net dips 93%

Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL), a subsidiary of ONGC, has reported a 93.4 per cent drop in net profit at Rs 19 crore for the third quarter ended December against Rs 288 crore in the same period last year.

Gross turnover, however, went up 36 per cent at Rs 7,405 crore.

The company’s performance during the quarter was adversely impacted due to discounts on petrol, diesel, kerosene and domestic LPG, which amounted to Rs 83 crore. MRPL had disputed these discounts, which were unilaterally decided by Indian Oil, BPCL and HPCL. Refining margins have also declined in line with the global trend.

Refinery margins achieved a throughput of 3.19 million tonnes, up 6 per cent from 3.02 million tonnes.