New Delhi, Jan. 31: Riding on the back of soaring crude prices, ONGC has more than doubled its net profit to Rs 3,493 crore for the third quarter of 2004-05 from Rs 1,719 crore recorded in the year-ago period.

This takes the net profit of the company for the first nine months of the current fiscal to Rs 9,185 crore, which is 38 per cent higher than the corresponding figure of Rs 6,678 crore for the same period of the last financial year.

ONGC?s crude output in the third quarter was 6.68 million tonnes compared with 6.689 million tonnes for the same quarter last fiscal.

On the natural gas front, ONGC achieved a production of 5.87 billion cubic metres, which was also lower than the 5.957 BCM produced during the third quarter of the last fiscal.

ONGC had to pay out Rs 1, 332 crore as part of its share of the LPG and kerosene subsidy to IOC, BPCL and HPCL, as instructed by the government during the third quarter.

The oil major?s subsidy burden has gone up to Rs 3,114 crore during the current 9 months compared with Rs 1,536 crore in the corresponding period last year.

The net price realised for ONGC for its crude oil during the third quarter was $41.25 per barrel after allowing a discount of $7.3 per barrel to the downstream companies. The average price that the company realised for its crude during the third quarter of last year, however, was only $27 per barrel.

ONGC sold 18.07 million tonnes of crude oil, 15.59 BCM of natural gas and 2,571 tonnes of value-added products like LPG and naphtha.

Earnings-per-share (EPS) of ONGC for the nine-month period of 2004-05 has increased to Rs 64.42 per share compared with Rs 46.83 per share for the corresponding period the year before. ONGC has already paid an interim dividend of 200 per cent for the current fiscal, aggregating Rs 2852 crore.