Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) share price

₹296.35 on NSE as of 2026-10-07. -1.38% on the day. market cap ₹128,572 Cr. P/E 7.4. 52-week range ₹271.30 to ₹388.30. Oil Gas & Consumable Fuels.

www.bharatpetroleum.in

Bharat Petroleum Q1 FY27: A ₹1.51 Lakh Crore Quarter That Ended in a ₹1,873 Crore Loss

At a glance

Bharat Petroleum Corporation refines crude oil and sells petrol, diesel and cooking gas across India.

Consolidated revenue for the three months to June 2026 was ₹1,51,277 crore. That is 34.4% higher than the ₹1,12,551 crore of a year earlier. The March 2026 quarter had brought in ₹1,18,701 crore. Operating profit was negative ₹4,055 crore, against ₹9,678 crore a year earlier. The bottom line was a loss of ₹1,873 crore, against a profit of ₹6,839 crore. Earnings per share, the profit attached to a single share, came to negative ₹4.32.

The company's own note on the results says the loss was mainly due to suppressed marketing margin on certain petroleum products. The same note says a higher refining margin offset part of that. Management put the reported gross refining margin at $41.41 a barrel, before export duty and RIC. That margin is the gap between what the products fetch and what the crude cost. On a normalised basis after SAED, management put the figure at about $17 a barrel. Refinery throughput for the quarter was 10.15 million tonnes. Domestic market sales came to 13.62 million tonnes.

Two items sat below the operating line. Consolidated other income was ₹3,535 crore. An exceptional item of ₹1,884.56 crore was booked as income. It came from moving a foreign currency translation reserve into the profit and loss account, after IBV Brazil became a wholly owned subsidiary. Management described this as purely accounting, with no incremental cash flow. The standalone loss, which leaves subsidiaries out, was larger at ₹3,962 crore.

Introduction

BPCL is a public sector company that refines crude oil and markets petroleum products. It was incorporated in November 1952 as Bharat-Shell Refineries Limited, set up by Shell Petroleum. The name changed to BPCL in 1977. It now operates as a Maharatna central public sector enterprise, the top tier of operating freedom the government grants. The President of India held 52.98% of the equity as of June 2026.

Three refineries carry the business: Mumbai, Kochi and Bina. Their combined capacity is 35.30 million tonnes a year, roughly 14% of India's refining capacity. Throughput in the year to March 2026 was 41.15 million tonnes. Domestic product sales that year were 54.18 million tonnes, a 27.27% share of the market. The fuel reached buyers through 25,323 retail outlets as of March 2026. That count stood at 25,485 by the June 2026 quarter.

The corporate calendar has been busy at the top. Sanjay Khanna was appointed Chairman and Managing Director with effect from 9 April 2026. He was given additional charge as Director (Refineries) on 16 April 2026. Rajkumar Dubey superannuated as Director (HR) on 31 March 2026. Subhankar Sen took additional charge from 1 April, and Pushp Kumar Nayar was appointed Director (Human Resources) from 27 May 2026. Vedveer Arya joined as Additional Director from 9 March 2026, and Sushma Agarwal ceased from 10 March 2026.

The company is midway through a capital spending programme of about ₹1.70 lakh crore, spread over the five years to March 2029. Of that, ₹20,400 crore went out in the year to March 2026. Management guides to ₹25,000 crore for the year to March 2027. The largest single item is the Bina refinery expansion, from 7.8 to 11 million tonnes a year. A bulk petrochemical complex of 2.2 million tonnes a year goes with it, at an estimated ₹50,000 crore.

The year to March 2026 produced a consolidated net profit of ₹25,843 crore on sales of ₹4,55,228 crore. In parallel, BPRL Ventures BV completed the purchase of the remaining 39.14% of IBV Brazil Petroleo from Videocon Energy Brazil. That deal cost ₹2,312 crore and took effect on 30 June 2026.

Business model

BPCL buys crude oil, processes it and sells what comes out. The input price is set by a global market with opinions about geopolitics. The selling price of the two highest-volume products carries rather more governmental involvement. When the two move apart, the difference lands in the profit and loss account.

The refining half runs Mumbai, Kochi and Bina. Bina carries a Nelson Complexity Index of 11.76, the highest among Indian public sector refineries. The index scores how much heavy, awkward crude a plant can turn into finished fuel. In the June 2026 quarter Bina posted a gross refining margin of about $57 a barrel. Mumbai came in near $34 and Kochi near $39. Management attributes Bina's edge to crude slate flexibility towards high-sulphur grades, which cost less than low-sulphur ones. Combined utilisation for the quarter was around 84%. Bina ran at about 87% and Kochi at about 85%.

The marketing half is where the tonnage goes: 25,485 retail outlets at quarter-end and 2,700 CNG stations. Throughput averaged 157 kilolitres per outlet per month. Premium fuels are a small slice being nudged along. Speed 97 conversion stood at 3.88%. Speed 100 is now sold at 53 outlets. A standalone BKA format operates at Srinagar Airport, with the BKA network at 220 outlets.

Then there is LPG, the cooking gas sold in cylinders. BPCL held 27.53% of that market in the year to March 2026. Behind it sit 57 bottling plants and more than 6,278 distributors. Roughly 8.6 crore customer connections take the cylinders. Under a 2020 arrangement of the oil ministry, MoPNG, a shortfall is parked rather than charged. When the market-determined price falls short of the effective cost to the customer, the difference goes into a buffer account. At 30 June 2026 that cumulative net negative buffer stood at ₹15,803.74 crore. The figure was ₹12,318.52 crore at March 2026. Revenue on LPG sales is simply not recognised to that extent.

Beyond the core sit aviation fuel stations, lubricant blending, city gas geographies and industrial customers. Through the subsidiary BPRL, the group holds participating interest in 15 exploration blocks across six countries. India, Mozambique and Brazil are among them. Indonesia and the UAE complete the list. Two Russian entities are held as equity stakes.

Quarterly results, balance sheet, cash flow, ratios, shareholding and the filings themselves are on the full page for Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited.

Companies in the same industry as Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited

Refineries & Marketing

All listed companies