

OMCs face heat from crude surge, after inventory-led March-quarter earnings beat
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Oil marketing companies’ (OMCs) strong March-quarter (Q4FY26) results hide the heavy losses they are incurring due to higher crude oil prices. Brent crude now trades over $100 per barrel, up from about $70 per barrel before the West Asia war began.Efforts to soften the blow are still not enough to cushion the impact of crude price surge.
The government reduced excise duty on petrol and diesel by ₹10 per litre on 27 March. It has also allowed two price increases over the past week, totalling about ₹4 per litre.
Against this backdrop, OMCs: Indian Oil Corp. Ltd (IOCL), Bharat Petroleum Corp.
Ltd (BPCL), and Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd (HPCL), are projected to see substantial under-recoveries (losses on selling fuel below market prices) in the ongoing Q1FY27 (versus nil in Q4FY26).Apart from auto fuels, OMCs’ cost of procurement of LPG has also increased sharply to about $1,000 per tonne, against $520 per tonne before the war, as per a 17 May Nomura Global Market Research report.
The three OMCs have reported a jump in under-recoveries to ₹670 per LPG cylinder in May versus ₹170 in April, and about ₹80 in Q4FY26.JM Financial Institutional Equities estimates India’s import bill to rise sharply by ₹1.6 trillion in Q1FY27 at $110 per barrel of Brent crude, compounded by the sharp rupee depreciation. Out of this, ₹33,500 crore is expected to be borne by the government, ₹9,000 crore by refiners, ₹35,000 crore by consumers, and the remaining ₹84,500 crore by OMCs.“This implies potential for ~10% erosion in OMCs’ book value by end-Q1FY27E; however, OMCs have balance sheet strength to absorb current quarterly under-recoveries for two–three quarters (current net debt-to-equity comfortable at
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