Castrol India reported a 30% decline in profits for 2020, although the company said it rebounded during the second half of the year as demand gradually revived. Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd. exported 14,600 metric tons of lubricants during the 2020 calendar year, according to its earnings announcement.
Castrol India
Mumbai-based Castrol India reported profits after tax of Rs 583 crore (Rs 5.8 billion or U.S. $79.6 Million) in 2020, down from Rs 827 crore in 2019. For the quarter ended Dec. 31, the company posted Rs 188 crore in profits after tax, down 31% from Rs 271 crore in 2019’s fourth quarter.
The company reported revenue from operations of Rs 2,997 crore for 2020, down 23% from 3,877 crore in 2019. In the fourth quarter, revenue from operations declined to Rs 935 crore, down 8% from Rs 1,012 crore.
Castrol India Managing Director Sandeep Sangwan said in a press release that the company had delivered a resilient financial performance in a difficult year marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing external challenges.
BP, Castrol’s parent company, reported Monday that the underlying replacement cost profit before interest and tax for its lubricants business declined 35% in 2020 due to impacts of the pandemic. The London-based company, the world’s third-largest lube supplier, noted that sales in what it described as growth markets recovered to 2019 levels during the second half of 2020 as governments in those countries eased restrictions.
Echoing that, Sangwan described 2020 as a story of two halves. “While we continued with our priorities through the year – keeping safety and wellbeing of our people and supporting communities we operate in at the fore – we gained good momentum in the second half with the partial revival of demand,” he said. Sangwon noted that the company’s second half 2020 revenue reached Rs 1,818 crore, up 54% from first half 2020 sales revenue.
“We have also taken actions to prepare the business for growth in the future including corrective pricing actions for our commercial vehicles portfolio, which has yielded double-digit volume growth in the last quarter, as well as inventory reduction for distributors to help improve their working capital,” he added.
Hindustan Petroleum
Hindustan Petroleum exported 11,300 metric tons of lubricants for the nine-month period ending Dec. 31, the company reported in its earnings announcement on Feb. 4. During the April-June 2020 quarter, the company only exported 3,300 tons of lubricants, HPCL said in a press release in August. This likely reflected impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. HPCL exported a record 16,800 tons of lubricants for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2020.