Despite COVID-led impact on business, NOC books Rs 13 billion profit in FY 2019-20

KATHMANDU: Contrary to the expectation that COVID-19 and its impact on operation of industries and transportation services will bring down fuel consumption and hit revenue of the state-owned Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC), the corporation has been able to record almost Rs 13 billion profit in the last fiscal year (2019-20).

Though petroleum business came to a standstill for several months in the last fiscal year owing to the COVID-19 spread, the state-owned fuel monopoly has been able to boost its profit by Rs 4.3 billion compared to its earnings in the previous fiscal year (2018-19). NOC had recorded 8.62 billion profit in 2018-19 FY.

Similarly, NOC’s gross profit has also increased by almost Rs 6.7 billion to Rs 23 billion in the last fiscal year.

As per NOC, Rs 2.93 billion was spent in last fiscal year to control pollution while NOC contributed Rs 2.06 billion to the Price Stabilization Fund which was set up to control fluctuation in price of petroleum products. The fund has almost Rs 8 billion as of today.

Similarly, overall investment made by NOC in last fiscal year increased by Rs 17 billion to more than Rs 27.28 billion.

“We have managed to save billions of rupee through operation of the cross-border pipeline while leakages has been controlled. All these factors contributed to strengthen financial position of the corporation,” said Suredra Kumar Paudel, executive director at NOC.

Paudel was appointed the new executive director of NOC on January 2019.

Paudel, a chartered accountant, has been credited largely for bringing effective programmes to improve the financial health of Udayapur Cement, the organisation in which he was the general manager before being appointed to NOC.

Apart from increasing the production volume, Paudel was also credited for clearing almost all of the liabilities  that the cement factory owed including VAT and unpaid employees’ wages.

His appointment to NOC had come at a time when NOC had become infamous for being a corrupt enterprise.