Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is trading lower 3% at Rs 275.75 on reporting 4.8% year-on-year drop in its net profit at Rs 6,741 crore for the quarter ended December 2011 due to three-fold jump oil subsidy burden. The state-owned oil exploration company had a net profit of Rs 7,083 crore in year earlier.

The explorer paid Rs 12,536 crore as oil subsidy bill in Q3FY12 against Rs 4,222 crore in the same period a year ago. The fall will be steeper if one excludes the one-time gain of Rs 3,142 crore, the government-run explorer received from Cairn India for its share of royalty till September 2011 for the Barmer oil field in Rajasthan.

Meanwhile, the company's net sales were down 11% to Rs 18,517 crore and the operating margins dropped by 720 basis points to 83.60% during the recently concluded quarter.

A combined 1.92 million shares have changed hands on the counter on so far on the NSE and BSE.