Essar Energy, which is promoted by Ruia brothers Ravi Ruia and Shashi Ruia, has announced a pre-tax loss of $1.15 billion during the 15 months till March 2012.

The company has moved from accounting period till the month of December to the April-March accounting period and has thus reported the results for a period of 15 months. London-listed Essar blamed the negative ruling by the Supreme Court in a tax case for the pre-taxation loss during the period.

The company had recorded a pre-tax profit of $365.5 million in year-ago period. The country's apex court had ruled in January that the company was not eligible for incentives for industrial investment in Gujarat under the `Capital Incentive to Premier and Prestigious Unit Scheme 1995-2000'.

The court had also scrapped the 125 per cent sales tax deferment benefit to the company, which it claimed for investment in the Vadinar refinery project. The ruling relating to the sales tax deferment led to the pre-tax loss. The company's figures were also affected by exceptional items worth $1.28 billion.

On the other hand, the revenues for the company more than doubled from $10 billion in December 2010 to $22 billion mainly due to refining and marketing revenues in India. The company has benefited high selling prices, and the acquisition of the Stanlow refinery from in Cheshire from Royal Dutch Shell for $350 million.

Chief executive Naresh Nayyar said, "We are now very much an operational energy business, with many construction projects completed, and our capex investment programme has peaked. The expansion of our Vadinar refinery has been very successful, putting the plant on a par with the best in the world. Here, high-value fuels can be created from lower-cost, ultra heavy crudes."