State-owned Padma Oil's profit fell 18 percent year-on-year in the three months to December last year while another such oil marketer Meghna Petroleum registered an 8.6 percent growth in profit in the same period.

However, both of them achieved a year-on-year jump in profits in the July-December period of 2023-24 fiscal year, for which the two subsidiaries of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation gave credit to a rise in their non-operating income.

Padma made Tk 71.6 crore profit in the October-December period of the current fiscal year, down from Tk 87.62 crore in the same period previous year, according to the company's unaudited financial statement.

Its earnings per share (EPS) hit Tk 7.29 in the second quarter of 2023-24 financial year, down from Tk 8.92 in the same period previous year, it said in a disclosure on the website of the Dhaka Stock Exchange today.

But in the six months to December of 2023, Padma's profit rose 2.4 percent year-on-year to Tk 162.3 crore.

In 2023's first half, the company's EPS hit Tk 16.53, up from Tk 16.13 in the same a-year-ago period when its net operating cash flow per share (NOCFPS) also rose to Tk 73.84 negative, from Tk 101.80 negative.

Meanwhile, Meghna Petroleum made a profit of Tk 98 crore in the second quarter of 2023-24 financial year, up from Tk 90 crore in the same period of 2022-23.

In 2023-24's October-December period, the company's EPS rose to Tk 9.06 against Tk 8.34 of the previous year while the figure went up to Tk 17.48 in the July-December period of FY24, against FY23's Tk 17.04.

Meghna's NOCFPS fell to Tk 60.27 negative in the six-month period against Tk 91.75 a year ago mainly due to an increase in payments to suppliers, employees and others.