IOC sees $12 bln revenue loss this fiscal

MUMBAI - State-run fuel marketing firm Indian Oil Corp's revenue losses on fuel sales for the current fiscal year will be 590 billion rupees ($12.1 billion), its chairman said on Thursday.

IOC is making profits on sales of petrol and diesel, but is still incurring a loss on cooking gas and kerosene, Chairman Sarthak Behuria told reporters.

IOC is losing 77 rupees of revenue per cylinder of cooking gas sold, and 12 rupees for a litre of kerosene, but is making 1.60 rupees per litre of petrol it retails and nearly 3 rupees on a litre of diesel, he said.

Overall the firm was losing about 50-60 million rupees per day, Behuria said.

In India, state-run oil marketing companies are made to sell fuel at government-controlled prices to keep inflation in check and help poor and middle-class households.

These firms are compensated by way of oil bonds from the government, while state-run upstream oil companies such as Oil & Natural Gas Corp sell them heavily discounted crude.

IOC, the country's largest state-run refiner, plans to import 46 million tonnes of crude oil in the fiscal year 2009/10.