The company, along with subsidiary Chennai Petroleum, controls about a third of the country's 5 million-barrels-per-day (bpd) refining capacity.

Net profit for the state-owned company rose to 62.27 billion rupees ($842.14 million) in the three months ended Sept. 30, from 5.63 billion rupees a year earlier.

Analysts on average had expected a profit of 28.20 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv data.

IOC's inventory gains in the September quarter were at 74 billion rupees against an inventory loss of 18.07 billion rupees a year earlier, Chairman S. M. Vaidya told a news conference.

Refiners buy crude oil and process it after a gap of 45-60 days. An inventory gain is booked when oil prices rise by the time the company refines the crude and sell the fuels.

Brent crude price fell 0.5% during the July-September quarter, after rising 81% in the previous quarter.

Gross refining margin, the difference between the cost of crude procurement and the prices of refined products, during the second quarter averaged $8.62 per barrel from $1.28 per barrel a year ago.

Fuel margins recovered after COVID-19 lockdown hammered fuel demand and squeezed margins in the previous quarter.

Vaidya said IOC is operating its refineries at about 95% capacity and hopes to run them at 100% rate in 2-3 months when the fuel demand is also expected to rise to pre-COVID-19 levels. [O/INDIA1] [O/INDIA2]

IOC, which aims to spend 262.3 billion rupees in 2020-21, also approved 50 billion rupee worth projects, including setting up of a polybutadine rubber project at its Panipat refinery, setting up of a jetty and marginal expansion in its Bongaigaon refinery.

(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru and Nidhi Verma in Delhi; Editing by Rashmi Aich)

By Sethuraman N R and Nidhi Verma