HPCL keeps Rs 12,000 crore capex plan despite slide in profit

Mumbai: State run-Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCLNSE 1.62 %) has retained its plans to spend 12,000 crore on capital expenditure in 2020-21 despite its net profit plummeting over 50 per cent year on year in 2019-20, hit by inventory losses due to sharp fall in crude prices and exchange rate fluctuations.

Chairman Mukesh Kumar Surana added a word of caution that plans for new projects may be revisited.

“We will have a capex of Rs 12,000 crore in the current year; there is no change in plans. Our Mumbai and Vizag refinery expansion projects are at an advanced stage. Barmer project is also going on but the expenditure would be later on because other work is going on there,” Surana told reporters.