Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited Q1 FY24 earnings conference call, hosted by IIFL Securities Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Harsh Vardhan Dhole from IIFL Securities Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Greetings, everyone. On behalf of IIFL Securities, I welcome you all to the first quarter FY 2024 earnings call of BPCL. To discuss the performance of the quarter gone by, we have the senior management team of BPCL, represented by Director Finance, Mr. V.R.K. Gupta; ED Corporate Finance, Mr. Pankaj Kumar; CGM Corporate Treasury, Mrs. Srividya V; DGM Pricing and Insurance, Chandan Nidhi ; and Senior Manager Pricing and Insurance, Rahul Agarwal . I would hand over the call to Rahul for the opening statement, subsequent to which the call will be open for Q&A. Over to you, Rahulji.
Thank you, Mr. Harsh. On behalf of the BPCL team, I welcome you all to this first Q1 Result Con Call. Before we begin, I would like to mention that some of the statements that we make during this con call are based on our assessments of the matter, and we believe that these statements are reasonable. However, their nature involves number of risks and uncertainties that may lead to different results. Since this is a quarterly result review, please restrict your questions to the Q1 results. I now request our Director Finance, Mr. V.R.K. Gupta, who is leading the BPCL team for this call, to make his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome. Hope you are able to go through our results for the quarter one day. We are pleased to share that BPCL has registered highest ever quarterly EBITDA, highest ever profit after tax, excluding the exception items, and highest ever total equity during quarter one. The data of economic indicator shows that almost all sectors have recovered and many are already crossing the pre-pandemic levels. World Bank and OECD have nudged up the global growth forecast for 2023. India's economic growth is expected to range on between 5.5%-6.5% for financial year 2023-2024.
In the recent S&P Global Ratings outlook, India is projected to grow at an average of 6.7% for the next 3 years, and growth forecast unchanged at 6% for this fiscal year, projecting a sharp bounce back to 6.9% in 2024, 2025, and 2025, 2026. Sales of automobiles recorded a massive growth of 10% year on year. Passenger vehicle sales grew by 9.4% and crossed its pre-pandemic level. Commercial vehicle sales dropped by 3.3%. However, the same is above 2019 levels. Coming to BPCL's performance for the last quarter, we recorded a stellar performance on both physical and financial parameters during this quarter. The throughput for refinery stood at 10.36 MMT for the Q1.
Compared to earlier quarter, it is significantly higher than the nameplate capacity, which was around 115% of capacity utilization. The distillate yield was 84.09% during this quarter, compared to quarter with 83.87%. During this quarter, we could process high sulfur crude of around 76% of the total crude throughput, again, at 73% in the last quarter of previous year. The capacity utilization for PDPP, that is our Petrochemicals Complex at Kochi Refinery, which was around 70% during this quarter. BPCL GRM for quarter one is $12.64 per barrel, all three refineries put together, as compared to $20.58 per barrel in Q4 of FY23. On sequential basis, there is a reduction of GRM due to the mainly reduction of the cracks.
The drop in GRM is mainly sharp for kind of fuel cracks with higher supplies and global macro headwinds during Q1. The HKN Singapore cracks fell down to $15.5 per barrel in Q1, from $28.2 per barrel in Q4 of FY 2023. MS Singapore cracks were at $12 per barrel in Q1, from $15 per barrel in Q4 of FY 2023. When we compare Q1 of current year with Q4 of last financial year on sequential basis, the Indian basket of crude oil has decreased to $77.7 per barrel, from $80.52 per barrel. The rupee has been hovering around 82 per dollar.
During the quarter, BPCL has registered healthy growth in core retail sales by gaining a market share of 0.20 and 1.8 in MS and HSD, respectively, among PSUs. Consequently, the main products, MS, HP, ATF, CNG, registered a growth of 6.1% in MS, 6% in HSD, 14.2% growth in ATF, and 19.7% growth in CNG during this quarter as compared to Q1 of 2022-2023. We estimate that between MS demand growth with similar lines for the entire during 2023-2024 financial year. HSD demand in urban markets are likely to witness relatively slower demand than the rural and highway markets, due to a little bit transition happening towards CNG. We plan to add around 1,000 new retail outlets during FY 2023-2024, and during quarter one, we have added 111 new retail outlets.
We have recently approved major projects with a capital outlay of almost INR 50,000 crores during this quarter, mainly petchem projects at Bina Refinery, some pure facilities at Rasayani, and there are some wind power projects around 50 MW into two in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. In line with BPCL's commitment for net zero at Scope 1 and Scope 2 level emissions by 2040, our renewables team has taken multiple projects. BPCL has a total installed renewable energy capacity of 46 MW as of date. We have projects in progress of around 60 MW, and recently we have announced two major projects of 5MW each in wind. We have signed multiple MOUs with Solar Energy Corporation of India and the state governments for development of RE projects.
In keeping with its vision of comprehensive energy provider, BPCL intends to turn its all ROs into complete energy stations, with provision of charging stations at its 7,000 ROs by 2024 December. Currently, we have 747 EV charging stations and 13 battery charging stations. The thrust is to provide charging stations at highways and cities priorities with the government of India. BPCL has adopted a highway fast charging corridor model, with provision of fast chargers either 30KW per hour or 60 KW per hour, at every 100 kilometers on both sides of the highway corridor. 8 such corridors are operational till date. We plan to set up around 400 such highway corridors. The gas business, BPCL has emerged as a successful builder in 25 years.
We, along with our JV, hold 29.1% market share in terms of sales in the CGD sector of the country, and will be investing approximately INR 48,000 crore over the life of this JV. Around INR 15,000 crore we are going to spend in the next five years, for making it operationally viable in the next five years for the CGD sector. Construction in our GA is in full swing, and we have completed almost 13,742 kilometers of steel pipeline in our geographical area, where we got aggregation under various CGD draws. Commercial sales have been started in 16 GAs. We currently dispense CNG in 1,607 retail outlets. Further by the financial year-end, we aim to add another 500 CNG stations in our existing MS and HSD retail outlets.
We have recently issued advertisement for 14,273 new retail outlets spread across the country, for capturing more markets and increase our presence. Under non-fuel consumer retailing, currently we have around 300 In & Out stores. In line with our focus to expand non-fuel consumer retailing in urban and rural markets, and set up an organized retailing ecosystem, we have commissioned around 120 retail rural stores in June till June, and will be increasing 1,000 stores over a period of time. In terms of petrochemicals, recently we have announced a large petrochemical complex at BINA, with additional impetus to the petrochemical segment in future. We plan to set up ethylene cracker, HDPE, LDPE units, polypropylene units, along with other downstream petchem units at BINA Refinery, and undertake refinery expansion from 7.8 MMTPA to 11 MMTPA.
The refinery expansion is mainly for availability of feedstock for petrochemicals. On account of this project, additional petchem facilities of approximately 2.2 KTPA will come on stream by 2028. Gross capital expenditure of the project is INR 49,000 crore, including the GST. If you remove the GST component, the net project cost will be around INR 43,000 crore. For Q1, the revenue from operations stood at INR 1,28,257 crore. The profit after tax stood at INR 10,551 crore. During this year, we have a CapEx target of around INR 10,000 crore for the financial 2024. We have spent about INR 1,464 crore in Q1. Our gross borrowings have significantly improved compared to INR 35,855 crore as on 31st March 2023 to INR 27,939 crore. This is only gross borrowing.
We are excluding the lease obligations amounting to around INR 8,800 crore. The debt-to-equity ratio as on 31st June is at 0.45, as compared to 0.69 at the end of Q4 of FY23 on gross borrowing basis. On consolidated basis, with respect to Q1 revenue from operations stood at INR 1,28,264 crore, while profit after tax stood at INR 10,644 crore. Recently, our board has approved the proposal for raising capital up to an amount of not exceeding INR 18,000 crore, for achieving energy transition, net zero, and energy security objectives. This capital will be raised by way of issue of equity shares on rights issue basis to eligible equity shareholders of the corporation as under the agreement. I now invite for questions and for any clarifications. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin with the question-and-answer session. Anyone wishing to ask a question, may please press star and one on your touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Participants, in order to ensure that the management is able to address all questions from the participants in this conference call, we request you to limit your questions to one per participant only. The first question is from the line of Rajesh Rai from ITI Limited. Please go ahead.
Hello, am I audible?
Yeah, you are audible. We can hear you.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity, sir. So my question is around retail sale prices and our approach for the same. Because more than 1 year has been an extraordinary time in the history, and we have seen a lot of ups and downs, more downs from, you know, the oil prices. Shorter time, we couldn't raise it proportionately, obviously, because of consumer increase. Now that, you know, a large part of the recoupment of whatever losses we had made earlier has been done, so what's your take on, you know, the future return fuel prices, and when you make a normalization start, how is the company looking at this thing?
Yes, I agree. Some of the losses, what we have incurred in the marketing of last year, some of the losses we have recovered during this quarter. We cannot, entire losses of marketing we could not recover in this quarter. One is on the share. Secondly, the market trends, if you see, the prices of crude is not yet stabilized. When we see the crude prices will hover around $75, then for a long-term basis, if we foresee the crude is at around 75 level, still we can think of anything. Otherwise, still, the crude prices have started going up. Recently, in the last couple of days, the crude has gone up to $82-$83 levels.
We have to wait and see how the crude prices will stabilize, then we can take a call on the pricing side. As on date, whatever losses of underrecoveries of last year, oil companies, at least for BPCL, we are not fully recovered, 100%. We have to wait and see how the crude prices will move, how the cracks will move. Accordingly, we can take a call in future.
Sir, any possible to give any time on because all losses may not have been improved, but a large part of it would have been done, and even the refining margins have been strong and supportive for us, for the, you know, refining division? To some extent, there will be some compensation from that side as well.
That is what I'm trying to say. We have to wait and see how the crude prices will move. Just it has started moving up. Now, it is around 82, 83 levels, the Brent crude is there. We have to wait and see for some more time. If we get a full clarity on the crude price movement, then we can take a call.
Okay. Okay, sure. Thanks a lot, sir. I'll follow up in the queue.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sabri Hazarika from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, sir. Thank you for this call, and congratulations on this set of numbers. I have one question, which is pertaining to this rights issue of INR 18,000 crore. This INR 18,000 crore is part of the thirty I think, it is, like, somewhat influenced by the INR 30,000 crore of capital support, which the government has announced during the budget. It's been mentioned, it's both for energy security as well as energy transition, right? If you are, like, raising... I mean, the objective of this right, I know, you've not given the details, but can you give us some sense on how the allocation would be on energy transition versus energy security?
Yeah, two parts in your question. One is whether it is a part of INR 30,000 crore or not. Yes, definitely, it is from the budgetary support, what we have announced. The money from Government of India including comes from that budgetary support only. Secondly, this particular rights issue, we are proposing towards three objectives. One is our net zero ambitions and net zero aspirations. Secondly, the energy transition related, and third one is energy security. Energy security is mainly wherever we have exploration blocks. India is a country, we are short in terms of energy related crude oil and other things. Definitely we need some more investments for getting this energy security, for putting more money in exploration side. Secondly, the energy transition is our investments towards energy transition is mainly for CGD business.
Secondly, to put some more money in the electric vehicle charging stations, and mainly for alternative fuels, for example, biofuel, CBG, and related investments, we need this particular money. According to allocations, individual project-wise, when you see our total ambitious CapEx target for next five years will be around INR 1.4 lakh crore-INR 1.5 lakh crore. There will be CapEx requirements are for these three objectives. One is net zero, and energy transition, and energy security related. Most of the INR 18,000 crore rights issue proceeds will be allocated towards these objectives. Individual project-wise, we are working on it, how much money we have to allocate to individual projects. We'll come back, and we will announce at the time of filing our application, what allocation for what type of projects we are going to do.
Right, sir. Thank you. Just a small follow-up. Energy security means it is like the normal CapEx only, it includes everything, right?
Right. Right.
Okay. Thank you so much. All the best.
Thank you. The next question is in the line of Amit Rustagi from UBS. Please, go ahead.
Yes, sir. Congratulations for good set of numbers. My question is to BPCL refining margin for Mumbai Refining. Why the margins are so low versus Bina and Kochi?
If you see our Mumbai Refinery configuration, they are a high sulfur percentage will be lower. They can process low sulfur grades will be on a higher quantum, and high sulfur grades will be at a lower quantum. Second, even if you see the combination of crude processing in Mumbai Refinery, the Russian crude composition will be lesser in Mumbai Refinery as compared to Kochi Refinery and Bina Refinery. In other crude refineries, we take a maximum of crude around 45% to 50% of Russian grades and high sulfur grades. During this quarter, if you see the high sulfur grade, the commercial pricing side, if you see, there will be a good benefit in processing of high sulfur, mainly for Russian grade. That is one reason.
Second, during this quarter, a small technical reasons, non-availability of hydrogen, sufficient hydrogen, we could not process some quantity of production. That will have a small impact only, but otherwise the major impact of Mumbai Refinery margins are mainly processing of low sulfur grades than high sulfur grades.
Okay. Can we say that majority of the difference is because of the Russian crude between the two set of refineries, like Vina and Kochi?
Directionally, the major contributor for this difference is Russian grades.
Okay. Sir, could you explain us, like, the LPG mechanism? This thirtieth June, you have made a comment about LPG. What exactly is the total, you know, still recoverable on account of LPG from the government? Any numbers on that?
We have disclosed in the results. Once again, I will repeat. As on March 2023, we have a negative buffer of around INR 850 crores. During this quarter, entire INR 850 crore, we have recorded part of revenue from operations we have shown, due to the good favorable pricing, good favorable prices of LPG. As on June 30, 2023, there is no negative buffer. Whatever available is a positive buffer only, which we have not recognized in the revenue from operation. On cumulative basis, as of June 30, 2023, there is no negative buffer for LPG.
Okay, okay, got it. sir, third comment on the CNG side.
Sir, sorry to interrupt. sir, may we request that you return to the question queue?
Sure.
There are participants waiting for their turn. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Hemang Khanna from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir, hope I'm audible.
Yeah, you are audible.
Okay. Thank you for taking my question, sir. I have a couple. Firstly, for the Mumbai Refinery, what will be the total share of the Russian crude sourcing, which was done in this quarter? Secondly, could you please reiterate what is the overall utilization for the Petchem project in this quarter, and how much is the GRM benefit of them?
One is, Mumbai Refinery, we cannot give an exact number in terms of the Russian crude composition. In fact, Russian crudes also, we have two grades, one is low sulfur as well as high sulfur. Overall, directionally, compared to other refineries, the Mumbai Refinery cannot process Russian crudes much beyond around 20%. Out of 20%, a good amount of crude has been processed in Mumbai Refinery. Compared to other refineries, the Mumbai Refinery can process a significantly lower quantitythe of Russian crudes. Secondly, in terms of PDPP performance, the particular units have been stabilized to a large extent. During current quarter also, the units have been operated around 70% in physical parameter. The GRM contribution this quarter, the Petchem margins are not comparably high as compared to other previous periods.
roughly, the GRM contribution on account of PDPP will be around $0.4-$0.5 per dollar per barrel this quarter.
Understood, sir. Sir, going forward, we will never drive.
Sir, there are participants waiting for their turn.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Varatharajan Sivasankaran from Antique Limited. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity.
Sir, your audio is not clear.
Is it better now?
Much better, sir. Thank you.
Yeah. I wanted the refinery inventory loss, if you can give us the number?
We will provide. Vatharaajan, now this side, we don't publish refinery inventory In & Out. Marketing inventory, last time already we have provided. Refinery, we are not working on separate anything.
Okay. Sure, I'll come back on it.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sumit Rohra from SmartSun Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. A very good morning to you and the entire team at BPCL. Firstly, you know, I would like to congratulate you. I mean, it's been absolutely a splendid quarter. In fact, you know, I'll just take a few minutes. You've actually reported what annual profit you used to make, you reported a quarter. Now, we understand, you know, of course, this has been, you know, for whatever happened last year. Sir, it's very heartening to know that, you know, when you said that, you know, we've not recovered last year's losses. Sir, see, I mean, my question is not to do about any refining or marketing, but my question is more generic, right?
I mean, today as investors, obviously it is completely disheartening to see the market cap of BPCL trading at where it is, right? Obviously, you know, the market is basically lacking confidence, and investors are not enthusiastic about, you know, the prospects, right? If you can just spend a few minutes and basically reassure markets that, you know, profitability is the key focus which the government is concerned on oil marketing companies. You know, that will basically, you know, go to re-emphasize confidence among all the investors, right? We are also doing a right issue, which clearly goes to show that, you know, we are obviously, you know, interested in increasing our equity, et cetera, right.
I mean, you know, overall, the, you know, what I see is the government has done is extremely positive, but, you know, unfortunately, you know, it's not been recognized by market, right? You know, being management, you know, you can give confidence to markets and reassure markets that, you know, the government of India is obviously concerned on the profitability, and obviously, they want these companies to be very profitable, right? If you can just spend a bit on that, you know, it will go a long way in reassuring markets and investors, sir. You may be aware, this quarter results is nothing but a reassurance to the market only for the shareholders, right? The prospects, if you see, on two sides, one, on the physical side, how efficiently our company is running.
From the refining side, you can see the refining capacity utilizing much more than 115%. We have crossed the pre-pandemic levels, and all three refineries are running at full swing, and 115% capacity is not a small thing. Second, the yields. The yields have been improved at 84% levels. All the refineries, when low sulfur grade gives a good commercial sense, our refineries have taken a challenge, and both the refineries, Kochi Refinery and Bina Refinery, their low sulfur production throughput is much, much higher than compared to any other refineries. These are the positive indicators in terms of efficiencies of our operation. Secondly, on the marketing side, we see the volume growth is almost 8% compared to the previous quarter.
These are the good indicators and reassuring our operational ability to give good assurance to the shareholders. Comes to the pricing, it's all market environment. For example, it depends, certainly depends on what is the outlook of the crude, what is the outlook of the crack. Sometimes, yes, on a temporary period of time, the margins may be still a little bit lower side. One has to see on the longer period of time, and over a period of time, longer term basis, whether the company can make good amount of margins or not. Yes, I am sure. We can ensure for a long-term basis, the margin should be generated. Okay.
Sir, I mean, I mean, just one thing, I mean, if I can add in here also, you know, earlier, when you started, you said that, you know, we have not recovered, you know, because obviously one thing is that, you know, we didn't make money last year, and normally, you know, we make about INR 10,000 crores annually, right? If you see that way, you know, we have a long way to go in catching up. Is it safe to assume that, you know, there's gonna be no price cut? I mean, the only thing, you know, people talk about, Abu price cut, because, you know, elections around the corner. That, you know, that kind of thing has to change, right?
If you can just give some more clarity on the pricing, then, you know, that will go a long, long way, you know. At this point of time, we cannot comment anything on the price, because we have to wait and see how the crude prices will behave. If we feel the crude prices will stabilize at this level for a longer period of time, then we can take a call. At this point of time, crude is fluctuating from 25 to 85. We are not sure whether it will stable at 85 level or it will go up to 90 level. We have to wait and see for more period of time. Okay. Thank you, sir, and wish you all the best, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prabhat Singh from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. Congratulations on a strong set of numbers, sir. I just want to understand a little bit more on the petrochemical capacity and expansion that you have planned. If you can kindly give some details in terms of the exact capacities planned and the kind of inputs that will be used for this project, whether it will be based on naphtha or gas or ethane. Any details on that front, plus timeline? That is my question.
First, already we have one petrochemical complex at Kochi Refinery. The capacity is around 329 MMT per annum. The recent announcement of a petrochemical complex at Bina Refinery, which is mainly commodity petrochemicals, with a capacity of 2,200 KTPA, consisting of 4 major product categories: HDPE, LDPE, and polypropylene, and then we have seen other petrochemicals. The total capacity of output of petrochemicals will be around 2.2 KTPA, and little bit of normal petroleum products it will give, along with capacity expansion of CDU from 7.8 to 11 MMT. With this 2.2 KTPA plus existing capacity of 329, we'll be having around 2.5 MMT of petrochemical sales in our basket.
Okay.
The completion of this project, our petrochemical basket will be around 2.5 MMT around. That is what we are expecting, by 2028 once it is in commission.
Right. What is the kind of inputs that we will be using? Is it sort of a dual fuel use? Would it have the flexibility to sort of switch between naphtha and gas? Any, any idea that you can provide?
Dual feed. It is dual feed only, most of these configurations, since we have a surplus naphtha available at some of the refineries, we want to take this naphtha to Bina Refinery so that we will get a more value addition. That is the objective with which background this project has been initiated, by using more naphtha for more intermediaries.
The economics, you know, the returns that we are sort of looking at, is the standard kind of a threshold for IRR that we have in terms of threshold, or that study is still to be done, sir?
Generally, we don't take up any projects if the IRR is not reasonable.
Right. Got it, sir. Thank you, and come back again. Appreciate your time.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Siddharth Chauhan from DNK Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Is it possible to give us information about what kind of plant shutdowns you have planned this year?
Hi, hi, Siddharth. I'll share it with you. Currently, Bina Refinery is going to shut down for the month of July. We will have some weeks of Kochi Refinery going for shutdown in the month of August for 15 days. Mumbai Refinery, one of the CDU will go for shutdown at the end of September for a month.
Perfect. That's really helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll move on to the next question. That is from the line of Vidyadhar Ginde from Soham Asset Managers. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you. My question was, there were press reports suggesting that you were trying to sign up a contract with one of the Russian companies for crude supply, and the discount mentioned there was about 8% to the Middle Eastern benchmark. Could you give us some color on whether the discounts on Russian crudes have come down, and whether the kind of volume, proportion of Russian crude you are able to use in Q1, will it remain at that level, or is it likely to go down? Because there are reports of Russia cutting their seaborne exports. If you could give some color on that. Thanks.
Yeah. We are always open for any signing of term contracts with any of the suppliers, provided if commercially they give a good chance to BPCL. Yes, discussions are happening with Rosneft, but not yet concluded. In terms of the Russian crude discounts, as a trend-wise, compared to earlier quarter sequential basis, the discounts have been lesser during this quarter than current time. We are not sure how the discounts will behave, and which side discounts will increase and discounts will come down. At this point of time, comparatively, based on the sequential quarter, the Russian crude discounts are on a lower side compared to previous quarter.
Is every month also lower, or its quarter was roughly similar? What was the rough discount in Q1, some range, and what's the proportion of Russian crude used in this quarter, in Q1?
No, it all depends on the cargo to cargo. For example, respect to companies, whenever there is a need of spot cargoes, then the M -2 , they will go to the market. A particular point of time, if there is no demand for that cargo, the discounts can go up. For example, if there is a good demand, from the buyer side, the discounts will be on the lower side. We cannot comment what exactly, directly, what will be the discount. Just definitely it will be cheaper than the alternative crude, so where we are getting from on the Gulf side.
Did the proportion of Russian crude go up in Q1 compared to Q4?
Nick, you are saying Russian crude procurement?
Yeah, yeah. As a proportion of your throughput.
As of date, till June, our proportion is in a good number only, a percentage of Russian crude production. If the discount continues at this level, still we can manage to take more Russian crude. In fact, if the crude discount comes down, there is no good commercial advantage of taking Russian crude.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Yogesh Patil from Dolat Capital Market. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question, sir. Sir, news from saying that PNGRB has been strongly considering the regulation of oil product pipelines and planning to allow third parties to transmit the oil products through the pipelines. My question is, how it will impact on our marketing of oil products, mostly on the petrol, diesel or ATF case? Do you see any kind of impact on our market share in these products if the decision taken by the PNGRB?
We have not studied what is the impact of the market share. We will come back. We have not studied what will be the impact.
Okay, thanks. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of S Ramesh from Nirmal Bang Equity. Please go ahead.
Thank you and good morning. The first thought is, what is your sense in terms of the impact of Chinese refining throughput increasing and surplus exports on the refining spreads? Do you see the Chinese demand recovery supporting higher spreads in the coming quarters? Secondly, if you can give some color in terms of when you expect Kochi PDPP as well as CGD business to generate the expected return on capital employed in terms of timeline and the kind of, you know, profits you can generate over two to three years from CGD and the petrochemical business.
Only for Kochi Refinery Petrochemicals, already we have shared, it has contributed around $0.4-$0.5 per barrel of refining margins. The only reason for lower year-on-year margin on account of petrochemicals is that during this quarter, in fact, last couple of quarters, due to the lower demand of petrochemicals in China, the import parity prices have been on the lower side. We are expecting this trend will continue for a couple of quarters more. Once the China, Chinese economy revives and the Chinese demand comes back, once the petrochemical prices go to the normal levels, definitely the margins of PDPP will go up.
We are not sure how much time it will take, but definitely once the China demand goes up, the petrochemical prices will be stabilized, then the margins will be improved further. Second, what is your second question?
It was on the CGD business in terms of the investments you're planning over the next 5 years. You said 16 of these VAs are in commercial operation. Yeah, what is the timeline to generate, you know, say, 10%-15% ROC on this investment? Is there any cash flows on this as of now?
As of now, we have already retailing our retail outlets. Retail outlets, around 1,607 retail outlets, we have started selling CNG. Where we are getting a good margins. In terms of the return on investment, we have to wait for the completion of the total project. We come to know what is the total capacity we have invested there, and then we can work out. As of date, we are not facing any cash losses for this business.
Okay. One last thought I may ask in terms of your capital allocation, especially from the rights issue and the long term, you know, investments in petrochemicals, what, when do you expect to be able to, you know, indicate what are the kind of commercial returns you will get on this investment, especially in the rights issue? Because there is a timing issue in terms of at what price you issue, and to that extent, there will be a dilution of earnings. How do you expect to, you know, offset this dilution of earnings from the rights issue? If you can just give us your thoughts on that.
As a process, we have the process of appointing the merchant bankers and transaction advisors. Within the next couple of days, we will conclude in appointment of our transaction advisors and legal advisors. After that, we will come up with the calendar, by what time we can come to the market for this rights issue. In terms of the capital allocation, already I have explained. We are working on it, which type of projects, how much capital we have to allocate from this proceeds. Definitely, this entire INR 80,000 crore proceeds are meant for, mainly for net zero ambitions, energy security and energy transition. In terms of the energy security and energy transition, definitely the return should be in the normal course of business only.
Only in terms of net zero ambitions, we may have to see what amount we have to allocate, because only on the obligation side, we want to go for a net zero. Returns point of view, at this point of time, we are not sure what projects we have to take it up. Once we complete this allocation, we'll come back and we'll share what type of allocation we will keep it to the net zero and for energy transition and energy security.
Thank you very much, and all the best. I'll come back with you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kirtan Mehta from BOB Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thank you, sir, for giving this opportunity. First question is in terms of the Russian crude payment, crude usage. If the Russian crude prices crosses $60 per barrel, would we be able to continue to make payment using the current mechanism, Or is there a risk that could reduce the usage of Russian crude in our refineries?
Based on our experience, once the price is crossing beyond the threshold, we have faced a little bit payment issues earlier. Now we have to wait and see for the next cargoes when the payment dues are happening. At least for the time being, we are not foreseeing any problem because now more banks are ready for making the settlements. We have to wait and see. As I update, there are no payments were pending for settlement. We have to wait and see in case really there is any participate beyond the price cap, or if there are any issues or not.
Right, sir. Understood. Second question was about the LNG business, where could you share more detail about the status of Mozambique? Is there any reassessment of CapEx done, and when is the state of force majeure likely to lift off? Also, on the Russia side, are we sort of started to receiving the dividends or are there any payments pending there?
On the Mozambique side, there are some positive discussions are happening. In fact, recently, two operator level committee meetings have happened. Most probably we are expecting, in next one or two quarters, the work may restart. Officially, the main operator, lead operator, TotalEnergies, they have to announce after taking consensus from the operators. Definitely there will be a small there will be an increase of the project cost because there was a delay of around three and a half years in the project. There will be an increase, but to how much and what extent, what are the timelines, not yet decided, not yet finalized. Once the operator level committee, if they have finalized the project cost increase and revised the timelines, we can share that.
Even in terms of the Russia, yes, with the whatever proceedings around for BPCL portion, $130 million is pending at Russia. We are not in a position to declare the dividend. The proceedings are not moved out of Russia. Our stake will be around $120 million-$130 million.
Thank you, sir, for this clarification. I'll go back to the queue.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vikash from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to understand and confirm the accounting for LPG margins from here on. Since there is this surplus mechanism, is it correct to assume that from here on, the accounting will not be more than whatever is the fair margin, and whatever is the surplus will not figure in the income statement, but will be simply taken to reserves as and maybe used sometime later whenever there is a shortfall? That is first. Secondly, also wanted to ask, you know, some gets a little bit more details on Mozambique. Maybe if you can answer this, and then I can ask the Mozambique bit.
Yeah. As an accounting practice, there is no change of accounting practice. Whenever there is a positive buffer, we never take it to the revenue from operations. As a government scheme, current scheme, whenever there is a positive buffer, for example, if we are recovering more than the price, we never take it as a revenue from operations. This is accounting convention we are following in last couple of years. There is no change. This will continue outside. The current scheme of working for LPG, if there is any positive buffer, it will be outside the PNL, it will be kept outside.
Okay, that will be used to offset it whenever there is a negative one, then that will come inside the PR.
Yeah, right. That is the mechanism, current mechanism.
Okay. The other thing that I wanted to check on Mozambique, could you just remind us, where were we in terms of financing, in terms of certain agreements, you know, initial heads of agreements in terms of offtake? Will all of those be valid, or you'll have to kind of redo all of that work whenever project kind of, when the project developmentally starts?
One is on the project financing side. Whatever project financing it happens for $15.4 billion, as of date, it is valid. They got the time extension. Question is on the revised project cost, what would be the number? We have to approach all the lenders community, but positively, they got good assurance of the lender community. The revised project cost, we may get the approvals. The project financing side, as of date, it is valid. Whatever required money for the project from our share, it will be brought on from the project financing side. Second is, offtake agreement. Whatever offtake agreement, as of date, it is valid. Whatever we have signed the agreement, that is valid.
Okay. If you could remind us roughly, was each partner doing his own share of agreements, or was it being done as a consortium?
It's a consortium. Consortium with respect to buyers, they will go to the consortium, and they will take the agreement.
This was 2 trains, right? That's roughly a little less than 10.
Yeah, as of date, 2 trains. 2 trains. It's positive for 2 trains, the current year.
That's a little less than 10 million tons, right? I mean, you're looking for-
Around 11, I think.
Around 11 million tons. Okay.
0.44 into 2. Around 10.
And the duration, as you understand, once you get to, say, day zero, start of the project development, is it 3 years, or is it a little more than that?
We are hopeful for four years, three and a half to four years.
Three and a half to four years.
Yes.
Okay. Okay. There has not yet been any formal announcement by Total, right?
Not yet. Not yet.
Okay.
We are hopeful. We are hopeful in the next couple of months, maybe some announcements can come.
Okay. Thanks for taking my questions, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bhaskar Chakraborty from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Good morning. You had indicated that you are looking at INR 1.4 lakh-INR 1.5 lakh of CapEx over the next five years. Does it mean that, from next fiscal, you are likely to see INR 25,000 crore-INR 30,000 crore of annual CapEx?
Yeah. The major peak CapEx will start not from the next year, 2025, 2026 onward, you can see the new CapEx. Current year, our target is INR 10,000 crore, we are expecting it will cross beyond INR 10,000 crore. Next year also, it is not to just level of INR 25,000 crore, somewhere around INR 15,000-17,000 crore. That is what our expectation. Up to 2025, 2026 onward, the peak CapEx, it is going to start. Mainly for the petrochemical complex, the Year 3 will be the major CapEx we have to incur. This year and next year, the CapEx allocation will be lesser only for project approval. Year 3 will be the major CapEx we are going to incur, Year 3 and 4 onward.
Does that mean that, there will be a large accretion in debt, coinciding with this? Because this is almost 3x the annual CapEx run rate you have had in the past.
That is the reason, some portion of our requirement, we are planning for the rights issue. Definitely, we have to go for the borrowings. I'm not saying that we cannot go for the borrowing, but the debt levels, our aspiration should be keep it at a lesser leverage level, not crossing beyond certain level. Maybe our aspiration will be around 0.8, 0.9 level of debt equity, even after completing of these projects, our standalone basis.
Thank you very much, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vivek Anand Subramanian from Ambit Capital Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. I just had one question, with respect to the dividend payout or the philosophy with respect to dividend payouts. Last year, I understand the profitability was depressed due to dividend due to the fuel prices being frozen and abnormal energy situation. How should we think about the dividends, considering your CapEx plans, which are substantially elevated, especially from year two and year three?
Yeah, we have a dividend distribution policy. Our endeavor always is to 30% of the profit should be distributed as a dividend or 35% of the net worth. That is our endeavor every year. We try to give returns to the shareholders in terms of dividend distribution, at least minimum of 30%. Even by taking up this much of large CapEx for the next 5 years, around INR 1.5 lakh crore, we are still hopeful we can distribute at that level as per the dividend policy. If there will be change in the policy, we can communicate. As of date, our endeavor always to comply with our policy.
Okay, just one last from my end. As far as your CapEx is concerned, because it is spread out, would it mean that the rights issue, money collection will also be spread out, or has that not yet been decided?
As of date, the entire exercise is yet to start. We have just in the process of appointing our transaction advisors and merchant bankers. Once they start their working, accordingly, we can work out whether, what is the timelines, whether it is a single time or multiple times we have to receive. We have not yet concluded anything on this.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vipin Kumar Shah from Samangal Investments. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Can you give the exact % of Russian crude used in all 3 refineries and the discount which we have got to the reference prices?
Yeah, once again, I'm saying the same thing, because we cannot give any exact numbers. I can give what percentage of crude our refineries can process. Because everything depends on what is the availability of Russian crude within the timeline. For example, for X period of time, for example, particular month, if I need some X cargo, if the market is available, then I can take X cargo and process. Many of the times, our requirement and market supply may not match, so we cannot give you exactly what would be the Russian crude we can process. On an average, directionally, we can take around 30%-40%, all three refineries put together, we can process Russian oil.
At least you can give what you have done in last quarter, sir. No? That is my point.
No, I'm giving the range. This particular range we can work on.
What was the discount?
Discount is a commercial term. Generally, we don't disclose what our discount we got.
Okay, thank you, sir.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll be taking the last question. That is from the line of Vishnu Kumar from Spark Capital. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the answer. A few questions surrounding the rights issue. I mean, when this INR 30,000 crore was allocated in the budget, it appeared that probably some part of the losses was indirectly getting funded through the rights issue, at least when the government provided. Now that we have indirectly recovered a good amount of the losses that is last year, can there be a rethink whether this money is required? That is one. Second, is that while we have said the three, four purpose on couple of purposes, which this rights issue, such as energy, net zero, energy transition, and energy security, can you give us a specific split of amounts that you already have in mind for this? Because also because why this question I'm asking is energy security.
In the past, we've not really had great successes in terms of our exploratory investments. Though we have exploratory we had, but at least in terms of the capital returns that are created from a Mozambique, which is supposed to come in 2017, 2018, or even a Wahoo, we not had much of an investment. Trying to understand, rather, we have focus more on the downstream and probably let ONGC and OVL do the energy security part. Just some thoughts on this point would be helpful.
Yeah. This is INR 18 billion rights issue, whether we need it or not, to answer your question, definitely we need, because such a large CapEx investment projects we are having, expecting around INR 1.5 lakh crore. We don't want to leverage ourselves in large extent, so we want to moderate our leverage. That is the reason we need money. Secondly, in terms of the capital allocation, whether exploration and where do you want to put more money, we are not going for any new blocks or new investments. We have two major investment blocks, one is in Brazil and one is in Mozambique, that has crossed the exploration stage to development stage. So we are continuing these projects only. It requires a large amount of investment.
That is one reason some part of capital allocation will happen for these two blocks under energy security. Energy transition, you know, almost 25 years we got the licensing. This requires a new capital requirement. Under energy transition, some amount of capital definitely we need to allocate for this business. In terms of Scope 1, Scope 2 emission reductions, we have a plan by 2040, how much capital outlay is required. Somebody roughly, we need around INR 90-INR 1 lakh crore. We are not just finally what is the exact amount, what type of project, but the timelines are around next 15 years, we have to work towards. We have to start the journey in terms of the net zero, Scope 1, and Scope 2. Some amount definitely we have to allocate for these projects.
Exact project-wise allocation, we are in the process of working on it. At the time of rights issue application, we will share that information.
Can there be a fungibility of the funds that you will raise for your petrochemical plants also, or is it necessarily going to only those that you will mention in the rights issue?
That is what I said. We have not yet concluded whether how much amount we can give to petrochemical project also, or do we need to go for a project financing. We have yet to conclude on that, which route we have to go.
Rough timeline for the raise in the next couple of quarters you want to conclude on?
Shortly, we will communicate what will be the timelines.
Got it, sir. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was our last question. I now have the conference over to Mr. Harshad Dandole for his closing comments.
Firstly, I'd like to thank BPCL management for giving IIFL an opportunity to host the call. We really appreciate, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, I sincerely thank you for participating in this call. In case any of your questions are unanswered, you can either drop in a line to me or to the BPCL investor relations team, and I'm sure they will look forward to address your issue. Sir, any last remarks that you would like to make?
Thank you, Mr. Harshad. On behalf of the BPCL team, I thank all the investors for taking part in this conference. I thank IIFL Securities for organizing this call. We look forward to meeting after the next quarter results. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, members of the management team. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of IIFL Securities Limited, that concludes this conference. We thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.
Thank you.