Kochi Refineries shot up to the 20% upper deck on commencement of trading on Monday and stayed put at that level.

In fact, by 10:10 IST, the scrip of the state-run standalone oil refinery was still locked at the ceiling of Rs 67.85. This mark is just off the 52-week high for the scrip of Rs 68.80 (20 June 2003). Substantial volumes of over 155,000 Kochi Refineries shares were traded on BSE so far. At its 20% ceiling, the outstanding buy position in KRL was over 174,000 shares on BSE.

Since the announcement of results, the scrip of KRL has risen 44% from Rs 47.15 on 30 April 2003.

On 30 April 2003, KRL unveiled fourth quarter ended 31 March 2003 results, showing a net profit of Rs 290.60 crore (Rs 2.9 billion) against a net profit of a mere Rs 26.20 crore in the corresponding period last year. Total income increased 94% to Rs 2,749 crore (Rs 27.49 billion) from Rs 1,417.40 crore (Rs 14.17 billion) in MQ-2002.

For the full year ended 31 March 2003, the company registered a huge rise in net profit at Rs 456 crore (Rs 4.56 billion) on a 59% increase in total income to Rs 9,267.60 crore (Rs 92.67 billion).

The company also declared a solid dividend of 100% or Rs 10 per share for FY-2002-03.

KRL is a subsidiary of state-run oil refiner BPCL, which had acquired a 55.04% stake in the company for Rs 800 crore (Rs 8 billion) in March 2001. The two companies have already integrated several functions including crude procurement and marketing. The acquisition of KRL has ensured enough products for BPCL's large marketing infrastructure, especially in the south and west.

KRL has further investment plans in the petroleum sector including process optimisation, energy conservation, R&D projects, additional LPG recovery and JV projects like the Kochi-Karur product pipeline and marketing infrastructure development.

With BPCL having a market share of over 20 million tonnes, with a highly developed marketing infrastructure, KRL could continue to concentrate on attaining capacities of scale and maximum utilisation of capacities rather than marketing. The company had been working to 100% capacity for the past 12 years barring last year.

As on 31 March 2003, the public and institutions held 14.73% and 24.31% in BPCL's equity, respectively