The second-largest oil marketer Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) plans to take Bina Refinery, its joint venture with Oman Oil Company, public through an initial public offering some time next fiscal.
"We have been looking at a public issue for Bina Refinery for some time. Having turned profitable, we are hopeful of doing that some time next financial year. Bina reported its first profit last fiscal year and in the first quarter of the current fiscal year," S Vardarajan, Chairman and MD, told reporters here.
Vardarajan, who will be retiring next week, later told PTI that Bina had reported over Rs 300 crore profit last fiscal, its first ever, and has also shown improved performance in the first quarter of the current year as well.
He was speaking on the sidelines of the AGM last night.
Bina Refinery in Madhya Pradesh is called Bharat Oman Refineries (BORL) and is a joint venture company of Bharat Petroleum and Oman Oil Company (OOC). BORL owns and operates the 6-million tonne capacity Bina Refinery, which is expanding its capacity to 7.8 mt at an investment of Rs 3,000 crore.
OOC is not participating in the expansion.
In the second phase of expansion, BPCL looks to take it from 7.8 mt to 15 mt with an investment of over Rs 18,000 crore for both phases.
Asked about this, Vardarajan said: "OOC has shown reluctance in funding the expansion from 6 mt to 7.8 mt. They are yet to take a final call on this. We have our internal approvals for putting the full funding as far as this part of the funding is concerned." The chairman parried a question whether OOC will exit through the IPO. But he was categorical in saying BPCL has no plans to buy out the 51 per cent stake of OOC in the JV.
"Why should I invest more in a company where I have complete control despite being a minority (49 per cent) investor? I am getting everything I want from the company now.
So, there is no rationale to up our stake," Vardarajan explained.
Asked about the valuation, he did not offer a direct answer, but said that with the completion of the expansion and increased profit, the company should get a good valuation.
BPCL plans to invest Rs 1 trillion as capital expenditure over the next five years. Of the plan capex, about Rs 55,000 crore will go into refining capacity expansion alone and around Rs 20,000 crore in upstream projects, including the Mozambique block over the same period.
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