GAIL India Ltd on Friday reported a 10 per cent drop in its second—quarter net profit after a steep rise in its LPG subsidy outgo.
Net profit dropped to Rs 985.38 crore in the quarter ended September compared to Rs 1,094.41 crore a year earlier, GAIL Chairman and Managing Director B C Tripathi told reporters here.
“Our profit is down primarily because of a 39 per cent rise in outgo towards LPG subsidy,” he said adding the company paid Rs 786 crore to subsidised cooking gas (LPG) as compared to Rs 567 crore a year ago.
GAIL along with Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) sell LPG and crude oil to refineries at a discount to partly compensate them for selling diesel and cooking fuel below cost.
Turnover was up 17 per cent at Rs 11,361 crore.
Tripathi said the profit was also lower because the firm transmitted lesser natural gas owing to fall in output at KG—D6 gas fields.
The fall in output at KG—D6 field meant that GAIL’s pipeline network was transporting 10 million standard cubic metres per day or a little less than 10 per cent less volumes.
Tripathi said GAIL has already tied—up Rs 4,400—4,500 crore debt that it had planned to raise to fund part of the Rs 7,300 crore capital expenditure during the current fiscal.
GAIL has tied up import of 7 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to meet growing domestic demand and also plans to ship as many as 8 cargoes from the spot market during the remaining part of the year.
The company board today approved nearly doubling of the Jamnagar—Loni LPG transmission pipeline to 4.5 million tonnes at a cost of about Rs 2,000 crore in next 36 months, he said.
Giving segment—wise revenue, Tripathi said sales from natural gas trading increased 28 per cent to Rs 9,697 crore, while revenue from natural gas transmission business was up marginally to Rs 984 crore as against Rs 980 crore in the corresponding period of previous year.
Sales from petrochemicals business fell to Rs 880 crore from Rs 938 crore.